NIGERIA: French lecturers' conference supports Francophony

Tunde Fatunde18 April 2014 Issue No:316

 

The Nigerian state has invested heavily in French language studies in higher education since the country's independence 64 years ago. The various strands of Francophone studies that have subsequently developed were investigated at the recent 16th Annual Conference of the University French Teachers' Association of Nigeria, or UFTAN.

The conference was held at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, in Osun state, with the theme “French in the Wider World”. Some 125 members of the association were there, with the event one of the best attended yet, said UFTAN's immediate past president R Adebisi.

The French language, in the context of West Africa, is of diplomatic and strategic importance to Nigeria, which is surrounded by French speaking countries.

They are members of the international organisation called Francophony – the commonwealth of the world's French speaking states. A participant argued that future UFTAN conferences should invite diplomatic representatives of Francophone countries.

French is the official language of some members of ECOWAS – the Economic Community of West African States – as well as an official language of Belgium, Canada and Switzerland.

France is no longer the sole custodian of the language, which has been appropriated by many countries all over the globe.

This pertinent observation reminded one of the conference of the International Federation of Teachers of French, or IFIT, which took place in Durban, South Africa, last year.

There the French minister of international cooperation informed the audience that by 2050, the Francophone countries of Africa – and not France – would guarantee the survival of the French language and by extension French culture.

Celebrating Francophone studies' professors

An interesting highlight of the conference was the celebration of Nigerian professors who have contributed to Francophone studies, as well as retired Francophone professors who are still rendering academic services including supervising postgraduate students*.

The presence of leading active and retired professors captured the history of the development and growth of French studies in Nigeria.

They are representatives of the first, second, third and fourth generations of Nigerian intellectuals deeply involved in Francophone studies since independence 64 years ago.

These professors, and those who could not be at the conference, are products of investments by the Nigerian state in creating a class of intellectuals whose main objective is to produce French graduates to cater for the diplomatic, military and economic interests of Nigeria and ECOWAS.

The investment of France in Francophone studies in Nigeria has also been important but peripheral to the core investment of Nigeria itself in this field of study. The French embassy, a traditional partner of UFTAN, promised continuous support for French studies in Nigeria's universities.

Four retired professors were honoured as UFTAN pacesetters – V Aire, R Elaho, F Emordi and E Echenim. A special publication was released in their honour titled French Language in Nigeria, edited by N Obianaju, E Omonzejie, G Simire and M Tijani.

French in the wider world

Professor EN Kwofie, one of the pioneers of French linguistics in Nigerian universities – a Ghanaian who eventually opted wholeheartedly for Nigerian citizenship – delivered a magisterial keynote address titled “French in the Wider World”.

Strolling down memory lane, he demonstrated that the French elite over time developed the language as a strategic diplomatic and cultural tool in the community of nations. He argued that French would remain a language of communication in Africa.

The lecture reminded one of an important declaration of Francois Hollande, the French president, at the 2013 Francophone summit in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. “French language is now an African Language,” he declared.

The four-day conference was mainly devoted to academic papers by UFTAN members in line with the conference theme. There were also two round table sessions specifically for distinguished scholars.

In the first Professor V Aire, in his paper “African Studies in French: A personalised testimony”, demonstrated how Nigerian scholars had made immense contributions to African studies developed in Canada's Francophone universities in Quebec province.

He cited the participation of Nigerians in the creation of academic journals and articles in journals and books: Dictionnaires Des Oeuvres Afro-Africaines de langue Francaise, Ecriture Francaise, Presence Francophone, Revue Canadienne des Etudes Africaines and Etudes Litteraires among others.

He revealed that there were about 5,000 Nigerian students in Canadian Anglophone and Francophone universities.

An intellectual movement

The second round table was highly technical. In his paper, “Literature and Law”, Professor 0 Oladitan, a literary critic and lawyer, illustrated the umbilical link between some literary writing and law.

He posited that the content of some novels could be subjected to legal analysis, and demonstrated his thesis by showing how legal terms can be used to analyse Sembene Ousman's novel Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu, a classic in the repertoire of Francophone novels in Africa.

Oladitan's presentation reminds one of the era of encyclopaedists, an intellectual movement in 18th century France. These iconoclasts demonstrated that there was constant correlation and interdependence between all parts of the body of knowledge.

There were also parallel sessions to accommodate various academic interests, ranging from comparative literature, French linguistics, translation and interpretation to culture and civilisations.

Some of the papers presented by PhD students had theoretical pitfalls and faulty formats and did not conform to international standards. Members agreed that the association should hold zonal seminars and workshops to assist these younger colleagues, supervised by active and retired professors.

The conference ended on two positive notes.

First, participants approved a proposal that the 17th UFTAN conference be held at the Nigeria French Village in Badagry in Lagos state. Second, a new executive was elected into office for two years, with the writer of this article elected president.

* Nigerian professors honoured for contributions to Francophone studies were: O Oladitan, C Mokwenye, V Okeke, M Iwuchukwu, E Obitaba, D Obieje, F Angrey, T Adejir, D Chima, V Obinna, I Mojola, B Ayeleru, R Adebisi and this writer. Retired professors honoured were: U Edebiri, I Mojola, V Aire, R Elaho, F Emordi, N Koffie, K Echenim and K Sonaiya.
 

AUSTRALIA: Young researchers YouTube their work

18 April 2014 Issue No:316

Each year at its annual conference, the Australian Cooperative Research Centres, or CRC, Association holds a “Showcasing Early Career Researchers” session.

This year for the CRC Association's Innovating with Asia 2014 conference in Perth in May*, 48 researchers – two years out from submitting their PhD to five years after submitting – braved the cameras and shot a 30-second video explaining the topic of their research, what they have done and what it means.

“It's a really hard thing to do,” says CRC Association Chief Executive Tony Peacock. “The so-called elevator pitch requires a lot of thinking and then great execution to do it well. All the judges were once again blown away that so many researchers had a go. We all wished we could have a much longer short-list.”

The short-listed candidates have already won A$1,000 (US$940) each along with participating in the CRC Association's conference in Perth. Each of the five finalists will present to the conference audience on their research for five minutes.

The audience will then vote for the winner who will receive a further A$5,000 presented at the AusIndustry-sponsored Excellence in Innovation Awards dinner.

The short-listed finalists

Jake Lacey – Poultry CRC

How gut microbiota contributes to health and productivity
Gut bacteria work like a community to modulate the immune system and defend the host. However, too often the ecosystem of healthy microbiota is thrown out of balance by pathogenic bacteria.

In poultry farms, necrotic enteritis caused by C perfingens is on the rise and results in poor welfare and a loss of productivity due to damage to the intestinal wall. Some birds show a natural resistance to the disease and by investigating the bacteria in these birds we may be able to find a probiotic cure.

Luigi Vandi – CRC for Advanced Composite Structures

Understanding interphase formation in thermoset composite welding
Composite materials have become the material of choice for manufacturing aircraft structures. However, unlike metals, carbon-epoxy materials cannot normally be welded together, making their assembly very challenging.

My project is centred on a new technology patented by the CRC-ACS, allowing these materials to be welded together. My PhD focuses on unravelling the molecular mechanisms at the interphase formed between these materials to ensure this process can be implemented on future aircrafts.

Dr Honor Calnan – CRC for Sheep Industry Innovation

Retaining the red in Australian lamb
The colour of lamb meat is crucial to customer appeal and strongly contributes to product value. Lamb meat currently has a shelf life of only two days before it is discounted due to browning, representing a major economic limitation to the Australian lamb industry.

My PhD investigates factors influencing the oxidative process of lamb browning, identifying practical methods such as feeding vitamin E and selective breeding that can improve the colour stability and thus value of Australian lamb meat.

Binbin Zhang – The HEARing CRC

Fabrication of drug delivery system
3D printing is changing our life in many aspects, from 3D printed food to airplane parts. How could it benefit the current research in life sciences? Printing human organs is of course exciting and ambitious. However, using this new technology to perfect readily available medical devices seems more achievable in the near future.

My research is to develop an integrating drug delivery system into the cochlear implant using 3D printing to prevent the detrimental post-surgery inflammatory response.

Michael Scott – CRC for Optimising Resource Extraction

Evaluation of energy efficiency, mission pricing and pre-concentration
This project evaluates the economic and production impacts from improvements in the energy-efficiency of mining and mineral processing activities, and the introduction of emission pricing on the optimal development of a low-grade, copper-gold deposit in Australia.

The research also examines the incorporation of pre-concentration strategies at the operation, which remove uneconomic material prior to expensive, and energy and emission-intensive, production processes.

* The Innovating with Asia 2014 conference will be held on 20-21 May at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre.

UNITED STATES: Why universities are under attack by hackers

FoxNews.com18 April 2014 Issue No:316

 

Reports of university data breaches are becoming almost commonplace, writes Rick Dakin for http://FoxNews.com. Last month the University of Maryland reported that its system had been hacked for the second time in four weeks. Indiana University's server was breached in February, potentially exposing personal information of 146,000 students and recent graduates.

And earlier this month a systems breach at North Dakota State University compromised the personal information of more than 200,000 students, faculty and staff – but the hackers never took any of it. These attacks are probably just the beginning.

Cybercrime is not new, but the sophistication and intensity of attacks are increasing at an alarming rate. Universities are easy targets because of their open structure and long information retention periods. For modern hackers, breaching a school's data system is relatively easy. Today's hackers are tightly run criminal organisations operating in countries that are hostile or indifferent to US interests.
Full report on the http://FoxNews.com site
 

INDONESIA: New scholarships for study at world's top universities

Ria Nurdiani18 April 2014 Issue No:316

 

In an effort to increase the number of people with postgraduate qualifications in Indonesia, the government this month launched the Indonesia Presidential Scholarships, which are tenable at the world's top universities.

The international scholarships require Indonesian applicants to be accepted at a university abroad before they can apply.

They are intended to cover the expense of studying at 50 top-ranked universities in the United States, United Kingdom, China, Canada, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, France, Singapore, South Korea, Denmark, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

World-class universities such as Harvard, Columbia, Cambridge and Oxford are included in the list.

Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the scholarship would help “prepare future leaders who can lead the country in the next 10 or 20 years so that our country will not only become an emerging economy, but, in time, an advanced country.”

Minister of Education and Culture Mohammad Nuh has said the government is aiming for 100 grantees every year. Just over 50 have so far passed the selection process – 28 female students and 23 males – with registration still open until 20 April.

Two will be attending Harvard, one Stanford, three Oxford, two the University of Tokyo, six Imperial College London, seven University College London, eight Australian National University and three the University of Edinburgh.

The substantial scholarships, announced just a week before legislative elections on 9 April, have been criticised by Max Sopacua, deputy chair of the Democratic Party, who said the timing of the launch was a political strategy to boost the ruling party during the election.

The popularity of the president's party has sunk to below 10% due to a graft scandal involving its high-ranking officials.

A presidential election will also take place in July although Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has already served two terms, cannot be re-elected under current rules.

The youth vote is considered crucial in the legislative elections, the results of which will be declared in May. Some 50 million out of the total of 189 million registered voters are under 29 years. All parties were trying to overcome general youth voter apathy ahead of the election.

However, the timing allegation was refuted by the education minister. “We've been working on it since last year. That it was announced close to election day is pure coincidence,” Ibnu Hamad, the ministry's spokesperson, told University World News.

A forerunner to the scholarship was launched in 2010 when then Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who is now managing director of the World Bank Group, began to set aside some money to be managed as an endowment fund.

In November 2011, her successor as finance minister Agus Martowardojo, now governor of Bank Indonesia, established a working group to prepare an institution to manage the fund in collaboration with the education ministry.

After almost three years of establishing the endowment with 20% of the funds provided by allocations from the state budget between 2010 and 2013, the scholarships were finally launched on 2 April.

Indonesians aged up to 35 years can apply for postgraduate degree study overseas, while the maximum age for a doctoral applicant is 40.

The scholarships will cover the fields of agriculture, medicine, food, energy, IT, telecommunication, technology, science, economy, finance, business, economics, law, religion, politics, and social and cultural sciences.

Grantees will be obliged to return to Indonesia after completing studies abroad, with sanctions imposed on those who do not return.
 

ASIA: Student-led migration is part of global talent contest

Yojana Sharma11 April 2014 Issue No:315

 

As the global competition to attract skilled and talented workers has intensified, international students have become an increasingly important source of immigrant workers, particularly the most skilled workers in advanced countries. A new report by three major international organisations estimates that 15% to 30% of international students who study in the most advanced countries stay on to work.

In the advanced countries of the OECD, the number of international students has grown since 2005 "in virtually all countries", according to Labor Migration, Skills and Student Mobility in Asia drawn up by the Asian Development Bank Institute - the Tokyo-based think-tank linked to the ADB in Manila - the OECD in Paris and the International Labour Organization in Geneva.

More than half the recent Asian migrants in OECD countries "are highly educated and they represent an important contribution to the skilled workforce in OECD countries", said the report released this month. It noted that "highly educated and skilled workers play a critical role in economic development and technological innovations".

More than three quarters of Asian students are concentrated in only four countries: the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Japan.

Some Asian countries such as China, Japan and South Korea have been catching up by offering higher education programmes in English, as well as scholarships and work opportunities for international students during and after their studies.

Asia the driver behind skilled migration growth

Students from Asia now make up 52% of all international students in OECD countries and the Asian region has been a main driver behind this growth in skilled migration, the report said. For example in 2011, 1.6 million Asian nationals migrated to one of the OECD countries.

"Pursuing higher education abroad is considered an effective channel to emigrate to industrialised countries," the report said.

The migration trend has been accelerated by a skills gap in many advanced countries and global competition for talent, despite general restrictions on immigration in most OECD countries.

"Asia as an origin region has seen disproportionate growth over the past five to 10 years. Its importance relative to other origin regions has increased in all of the top 10 destination countries for international students with the exception of Austria and Germany."

Japan is also among the exceptions, but Asian migrants still account for more than nine out of 10 international students in that country, the report said.

Countries where the study-migration route is highest are France, Canada and the Czech Republic. In Canada it is as high as 40% of migrants.

First step towards settlement

International study has become a common first step toward eventual settlement in the host country, despite some concerns that it is a 'backdoor' route to migration.

The path is eased for international students staying, in part because a domestic degree is easily accepted by employers. "There is no uncertainty regarding actual value or other recognition issues" associated with qualifications, as there is about the value of foreign degrees, the report noted.

A growing number of countries have sought to attract international students as a source of highly skilled labour, allowing students to work during studies and providing opportunities to change status after studies and to become labour migrants via work-study visas.

Not long ago, visa status changes for international students were often prohibited, sometimes motivated by a desire to protect the domestic workforce against competition. It was thought that international students, in particular those from developing countries, should return to their origin countries after their studies, to avoid brain drain.

"This perspective has changed since and some specific tools have been developed to facilitate the study-to-work transition of international students," the report said.

Most study destinations now allow students to work during studies, generally 20 to 24 hours a week during term. Often, there are specific provisions for additional work during semester breaks. In Japan, students may work eight hours a day during summer and winter breaks.

"Although student employment may not necessarily help in finding work later, it does provide the student with some familiarity regarding the local labour market and practices. Work within one's field can be particularly important for increasing the likelihood of finding employment after graduation," the study said.

However, student work can also be low skilled. It provides contact with the labour market and enhances the likelihood of remaining in the country but, negatively, international students compete with low-educated native-born youths and could damage their own job chances later through unskilled work.

In non-English speaking countries where universities run international programmes in English, graduating students do not necessarily have a broad range of employment opportunities. Nonetheless, study can serve as a transition period while a prospective migrant learns the local language, which is necessary for full integration into the host country.

Country familiarity is one of the reasons behind schemes in several advanced countries to allow international students graduating from their universities to stay on to work.

The duration of post-graduation visas varies from three years in Canada to six months in most European countries. Japan recently increased the duration from six months to a year.

Some countries, including South Korea, allow time for a graduate's job search depending on the level of study, with the longest job search period for those with PhDs.

Most countries with points-based immigration systems provide bonus points for those with host country degrees. This is the case in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and some European countries with a points system, such as Austria.

EUROPE: Best practice for preparing PhD students

Meysam Salimi11 April 2014 Issue No:315

 

As a plethora of universities across the globe continue to generate increasing numbers of PhDs, governments are beginning to ask if it is time to slow down the production line.

China is the world leader in producing PhDs, outnumbering the United States on a per year basis for the first time in 2008. The Asian giant has awarded more than 240,000 doctorates in the past 30 years.

Despite an increase in the graduation rate, employers continuously bemoan the lack of creativity and research skills of graduates, but in the same breath continue to recruit them, albeit mainly large firms.

Smaller businesses that are thought to benefit more from hiring graduates have alienated themselves from working with universities and cling to the old view that such graduates' focus is too narrow and they have too little to offer.

In effect, the employment opportunity for PhD graduates is becoming problematic, and that has led graduates to question the quality and the relevance of their training.

These issues have been stimulating debate about PhD education among stakeholders - universities, policy-makers and employers, to mention just a few.

So what should be done, as many PhD graduates are unable to find academic positions and a high proportion of them find themselves in casual or part-time positions?

Good practice

To address this, the League of European Research Universities, or LERU - an association founded in 2002 of 21 leading research intensive universities that produce over 12% of Europe's doctoral graduates - shared a number of good practice elements in doctoral training, in a report published in November 2013.

The report set out how universities are producing creative, critical, autonomous, intellectual risk-takers in ways that go well beyond preparing them for a life in academia.

The report indicates that over half of doctoral graduates in the United Kingdom go into jobs outside academia immediately on graduating. The figure for France is similar and for Germany even higher.

In addition, it points out that non-academic careers fairs and advice for researchers are well developed at, among other institutions, Freiburg, Utrecht and Pierre and Marie Curie universities as well as at the UK members of LERU: University College London, or UCL, Imperial, Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh. No information was found for the University of Milan, the only representative of Italy in LERU.

The report contains four parts - 'formal research training', 'activities driven by doctoral candidates', 'career development', and 'concepts and structures' - and documents the best practice elements in doctoral training at LERU universities.

Formal research training

Within 'formal research training', it discusses intellectual skills such as synthetic thinking, creativity and risk-taking practices among LERU members.

By way of example, in formal research training UCL offers a series of master-class workshops under its skills development programme whereby it invites eminent academic researchers to talk and interact with new researchers in order to inspire research activities.

Similarly, Imperial College London undertook a project to better support early career researchers in doing creative research, particularly seeking to encourage them to 'think big'. It developed three good practice guides: one for supervisors, one for postdocs and one for doctoral researchers.

Oxford University has developed a research skills toolkit to support researchers in their work, presented in a way that connects the tools to particular stages in the research cycle.

'Formal research training' also includes academic skills - managing uncertainty, scholarly networking, understanding the high-level research-intensive environment, knowledge exchange-transfer, and ethical principles.

Among the examples are kickstart to academic life at Lund University, academic professionalism at the University of Utrecht, bioethical training at the University of Barcelona, and the 'open' programme at UCL.

Personal and professional skills cover research project management, communicating complex concepts, teamwork and leadership in research, teaching, conference organisation, collaboration, and communication with non-specialists.

There are many programmes, such as leadership in action and people management at UCL and LMU Munich, developing mental toughness through the PhD and communication, engagement and policy at UCL, understanding decision-making preferences and commercial awareness for science and engineering researchers at Oxford, qualification courses for PhD candidates and postdocs at Zurich, combining commitment and flexibility at the University of Amsterdam, the individual training plan at Pierre and Marie Curie, and entrepreneurship at KU Leuven and Barcelona.

Skills assessment

The second part of the report, 'activities driven by doctoral candidates', includes activities targeting skills awareness and self-assessment.

For that, initiatives abound, such as skills review and training needs analysis at Oxford, online research student log at UCL, researcher-led initiative fund at Edinburgh, and feedback by PhD candidates at the University of Amsterdam.

Then there are candidate-led activities such as the Doctoral Candidate Association's Doc'Up project at Pierre and Marie Curie, networking at the University of Freiburg, involvement in governance, funding for self-initiated, self-organised, interdisciplinary projects and peer-mentoring groups at Zurich, doctoral candidate-led networking and conference organisation at Oxford, early scientific independence, group building and cooperative supervision at Heidelberg, the International Graduate Academy at Freiburg, train and engage at UCL, and funding initiatives at LMU Munich.

Finally, there are international doctoral candidate networks such as internationalisation at home at KU Leuven, international partnership programmes at Freiburg, training scientists from developing countries at LMU Munich, international professional skills development opportunities and research placements at Imperial College London, and the European plant science retreat for PhD students at Universite Paris-Sud.

Career development

With regard to career development, the experience of LERU universities has included non-academic, academic and intersectoral activities.

Promotion of non-academic careers varies among LERU members.

In this respect UCL is very active among LERU universities. For example it designed PhD employer forums and employer-led careers skills workshops in which research students received opportunities to hear from and network with employers from all areas of the labour market. A panel of speakers who themselves are PhD holders are invited to talk about their sectors, career progression, essential workplace skills and the best routes into these positions.

The University of Freiburg does the same at its annual career fair Head & Hands, in addition to several doctoral training programmes such as career evenings, career days or career talks with external speakers from the private sector and research institutions.

Another example is the University of Utrecht where PhD candidates in the penultimate year of their PhD can explore different career options in a two-day PhD activating career event programme.

In a similar vein, the University of Oxford has developed a 'four steps to career success' programme for doctoral students. It comprises four workshops: career planning, networking skills, CV and cover letter skills and interview skills. Other activities include a survey of graduate destinations at Pierre and Marie Curie University, and the use of questionnaires at Lund University.

The preparation for academic careers at Oxford takes place in the Oxford Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) where preparation for academic practice is supported for early career academics, particularly through training for teachers through staged progression.

Likewise, Amsterdam provides a teaching skills course covering presentation skills, advanced academic writing, building an academic career and blogging and Twitter for academics, in addition to the possibility of getting an appointment of six months as a junior lecturer, something many PhD candidates make use of.

From the intersectoral perspective, Oxford set up OUIIP - the Oxford University International Internship Programme - within its career service in 2008 to provide students with access to international work experience.

It offers summer internships with companies of all shapes and sizes all over the world. The university has found that the best opportunities are generated where there is an existing relationship with the partner institute. The three key routes for generating internships have been: Oxford alumni and educational and business partners.

The Student Consultancy at Oxford is another programme of learning and development activities that links the university to local organisations. It is an innovative free access programme in which students from all disciplines and year levels work in teams to address a strategic issue or business problem affecting local businesses and organisations.

The consultancy is not specifically for research students but 10% to 15% are doctoral candidates. It works well for doctoral students because it gives them work experience yet only requires a few hours away from their studies each week.

A similar programme is HELO - Higher Education London Outreach - at UCL. HELO aims to give students experience in working directly with a business. Students work on specific consultancy programmes and get to build networks and links with the business industry.

BioNews Internships - science news reporting for research students at UCL - is also a good addition. The university, graduate schools and Progress Educational Trust provide an opportunity for life sciences, biomedical sciences and law research students interested in science communication and legal and ethical issues arising from scientific developments to gain practical news writing experience under expert supervision.

Last but not least, the report discusses the 'concepts and structures' of graduate and doctoral schools and centres, national and international collaboration schemes, interdisciplinary training structures and other initiatives.

Building diverse programmes

Building on these premises, good practice is wide-ranging: it varies from a four-day entrepreneurship module with training and business plan development at KU Leuven to funding research network events with speakers from academia and industry driven entirely by doctoral candidates at Zurich.

The report spotlights many more examples from leadership development to research project management.

Many universities provide a diverse programme that allows doctoral candidates to attend the events they think will most benefit them since they must guide their own development as future research professionals. Much guidance will come from their research supervisors, but this gives them plenty of additional opportunities.

There is more to be done to improve doctoral training further. Employers, universities and governments all have a role to play.

For example, employers should work closely with universities in shaping and delivering training, which will also help them appreciate how training of doctoral graduates has changed. In addition, they should recognise that frontier research is the core business of research-intensive universities with a key role in ensuring competitiveness and prosperity.

Universities play a key role and have to provide a well-rounded professional development programme that enables doctoral students to put together their own personalised training. Universities should also have systems allowing students to track and assess their own development, with guidance, and promote innovation in research training and sharing of best practice.

Additionally, they should engage with employers in training and research so they are clear about what employers want and so employers have a better understanding of the academic research world.

Government and funders also have an important role to play. They should ensure that funded programmes demonstrate effectiveness in developing research skills, and support programmes that encourage intellectual risk-taking.

* Meysam Salimi is a research fellow at ADAPT - the Association of International and Comparative Studies in Labour and Industrial Relations - and a PhD candidate at the University of Bergamo in Italy, with research interests in vocational education and work, university-to-employment transition, and assessment of learning outcomes and training. This article was first published by FareDottoratoit.
 

Quality of Vietnamese doctorates cause for deep concern

VietnamNet, dtinews | March 10, 2014 08:42 PM

Vietnam now tops Southeast Asia in the number of doctors, but the country is ranked among regional countries in being one the lowest in the scientific research effectiveness of the training system.

 

Quality of Vietnamese doctorates cause for deep concern 

Vietnam now has 24,300 doctors and 101,000 masters, up 11.6% compared to 1996. The number of doctors in the country has seen an annual increase of 7%, and the rate for master is 14%, according to the statistics from the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The number of doctors in Vietnam from the position of deputy minister is five times higher than that in Japan, said Dr. Nguyen Khac Hung, from the National Academy of Public Administration.

Recently, Hanoi announced that by 2020 all cadres managed by the municipal committee must have postgraduate degrees, half of them are doctorates. Meanwhile, all key cadres of communes and wards must have a university education.

Most of leaders of groups and corporations in Vietnam are currently doctors.

Despite boasting the high number of those holding doctorate degrees in Southeast Asia, Vietnam’s scientific research is listed in the lowest group in the region. Vietnam still lacks inventions of regional stature.

Dr. Pham Bich San, Deputy Head of Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations, said Vietnam tops Southeast Asia in terms of the number of doctors, but no Vietnamese university is named in the top 500 universities worldwide.

Fake degrees

Over the past few years, many cases of fake doctors and masters have been exposed in Vietnam.

Nguyen Ngoc Anh, Director of Phu Tho Province’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, was found to have a fake doctorate degree from the University of South Pacific in the US. In fact, he only had an economic master degree after attending an in-service training course held in Viet Tri City.

Nguyen Van Ngoc, Deputy Secretary of Yen Bai Province Party Committee, was also found to lack a doctorate degree.

 

VIETNAM: Universities struggle to meet staff requirement rules

VietNamNet Bridge14 February 2014 Issue No:307

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/education/95362/universities-cry-out-about-ministry-s-requirements-on-teaching-staff.html

Universities have complained that the requirement of the Ministry of Education and Training of having one lecturer with a PhD and three with masters for every major is unfeasible in Vietnamese conditions, reports VietNamNet Bridge.

MOET has forced universities to stop 207 training majors because they do not satisfy requirements regarding teaching staff. The institutions, while admitting a lack of lecturers, have replied that there is no way to obtain enough lecturers as requested.

According to Nguyen Dinh Luan, president of Hanoi University, the ministry has told the university to stop training students majoring in Portuguese, Italian languages, accountancy and Vietnamese culture. “How can we find the lecturers with doctorates for Portuguese and Italian languages, if the two countries don’t train PhDs in the majors?” he said. Luan said the ministry was being too “rigid” when setting the same requirements for different majors.

Full report on the VietNamNet Bridge site

នាយក​រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី​ថា រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី​ក្រសួង អប់រំ ឈប់​ចុះ​ហត្ថលេខា​លើ​សញ្ញាបត្រ

Tuesday, 11 February 2014

ម៉ៃ ទិត្យថារ៉ា 

 

ភ្នំពេញៈ លោក​នាយក​រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី ហ៊ុន សែន បាន​ប្រកាស​ជា​សាធារណៈ​ថា ចាប់​ពី​ពេល​នេះ​តទៅ រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី​ក្រសួង អប់រំ យុវជន និង កីឡា នឹង​បញ្ឈប់​ការ​ចុះ​ហត្ថលេខា​លើ​សញ្ញាបត្រ​និស្សិត​ដើម្បី​ជា​ការ​បង្ហាញ​ ការ​យក​ចិត្ត​ទុក​ដាក់​របស់​គ្រឹះស្ថាន​អប់រំ ឧត្តម​សិក្សា​អប់រំ​មួយៗ​ក្នុង​ការ​ពង្រឹង​គុណភាព​សិក្សា​របស់​ខ្លួន។

ថ្លែង​នៅ​ក្នុង​ពិធី​ចែក​សញ្ញាបត្រ​ដល់​និស្សិត​សាកល​វិទ្យាល័យ​ជាតិ​ គ្រប់​គ្រង នៅ កោះពេជ្រ កាល​ពី​ថ្ងៃ​ម្សិលមិញ លោក​នាយក​រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី ហ៊ុន សែន បាន​ថ្លែង​ទៅ​កាន់​និស្សិត​ថា រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី​ក្រសួង អប់រំ នឹង​មិន​ចុះ​ហត្ថលេខា​លើ​សញ្ញាបត្រ​និស្សិត​ទៀត​ទេ ដើម្ប​កុំ​ឲ្យ​គ្រឹះស្ថាន​ឧត្តម​សិក្សា​ទាំង​អស់ ពឹង​ផ្នែក​តែ​លើ​តួអង្គ​របស់​ក្រសួង អប់រំ។

លោក​បន្ត​ថា៖ «ក្រសួង​ចង់​ឲ្យ​គ្រឹះស្ថាន​អប់រំ ចុះ​ហត្ថលេខា ទទួល​ខុស​ត្រូវ​ខ្លួន​ឯង​លើ​គុណភាព​សិក្សា​របស់​ខ្លួន គឺ​មិន​បាន​ពាក់​ព័ន្ធ​ជាមួយ​រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី អប់រំ ទេ»។

លោក​នាយក​រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី បន្ត​ថា នេះ​ជា​កំណែ​ទម្រង់​មួយ​លើ​វិស័យ​អប់រំ ហើយ​ក្រសួង​នឹង​ពង្រឹង​គុណភាព​នៃ​វិស័យ​អប់រំ ឲ្យ​សមស្រប​តាម​តម្រូវការ​ទីផ្សារ។ តែ​លោក​បារម្ភ​ពី​និស្សិត ដែល​មាន​តែ​សញ្ញាបត្រ តែ​មិន​មាន​គុណភាព​ដែល​មិន​អាច​រក​ការងារ​ធ្វើ​បាន។

លោក​បាន​ឲ្យ​ដឹង​ទៀត​ថា៖ «បញ្ហា​គុណភាព​តើ​ត្រូវ​គិត​គូរ​យ៉ាង​ម៉េច បរិមាណ​យើង​ទំហំ​ធំ គុណភាព​ត្រូវ​ស្វែង​រក​របៀប​ណា? នេះ​ត្រូវ​ស្ថិត​នៅ​ក្រោម​ការ​ពិនិត្យ​ពិច័យ​នៃ​ផ្នែក​ទទួល​បន្ទុក​ខាង​ ផ្នែក​សិក្សា​អប់រំ»។

លោក​បាន​រំឭក​ឲ្យ​ដឹង​ទៀត​ថា និស្សិត​សិក្សា​នៅ​គ្រឹះស្ថាន​ឧត្តម​សិក្សា បច្ចុប្បន្ន​មាន​ប្រមាណ​ជា ២២ ម៉ឺន​នាក់ ហើយ​សម្រាប់​សិស្ស ដែល​បញ្ចប់​បាក់ឌុប (ថ្នាក់ ទី១២) ជា​រៀង​រាល់​ឆ្នាំ មាន​ជាង ១០ ម៉ឺន​នាក់។ គ្រឹះស្ថាន​ឧត្តម​សិក្សា​រដ្ឋ​មាន​ចំនួន ៣៩ និង​ឯកជន​មាន​ចំនួន ៦៥ គ្រឹះស្ថាន។

លោក ហង់ ជួនណារ៉ុន រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី​ក្រសួង អប់រំ យុវជន និង កីឡា ពុំ​អាច​ទាក់​ទង​ដើម្បី​ធ្វើ​ការ​អត្ថាធិប្បាយ​បាន​ទេ​កាល​ពី​ថ្ងៃ​ ម្សិលមិញ។

លោក សុខ ទូច សាកល​វិទ្យាធិការ​សាកល​វិទ្យាល័យ ខេមរៈ បាន​ថ្លែង​ឲ្យ​ដឹង​ថា ចំពោះ​អ្វី​ដែល​លោក​នាយក​រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី​ធ្វើ​ការ​កំណែ​ទម្រង​នោះ​គឺ​ជា​រឿង​ ត្រឹម​ត្រូវ ពីព្រោះ​ក្រសួង​ពុំ​មែន​ជា​អ្នក​បង្រៀន​មិន​អាច​វាយតម្លៃ​បាន​ដូច​គ្រូ​ដែល គេ​បង្រៀន​នោះ​ទេ ហើយ​ការ​ដែល​រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី​ចុះ​ហត្ថលេខា​លើ​សញ្ញាបត្រ​គឺ​មាន​តែ​នៅ​ក្នុង​ ស្រុក​ខ្មែរ​យើង​ទេ ដោយ​សារ​តែ​ស្រុក​ខ្មែរ​យើង​ចង់​បាន​មុខ​មាត់​គឺ​ឲ្យ​អ្នក​ធំ​ចុះ​ហត្ថលេខា​ និង ចុះ​ចែក​សញ្ញាបត្រ ប្រទេស​គេ​មិន​មាន​ទេ។

លោក​បាន​ឲ្យ​ដឹង​ទៀត​ថា៖ «ការ​ផ្តល់​សិទ្ធិ​ដល់​សាលក​វិទ្យាធិការ​ចុះ​ហត្ថលេខា​នោះ​គឺ​ជា​រឿង​មួយ​ ល្អ​គឺ​សាកល​វិទ្យាធិការ​នីមួយៗ​ត្រូវ​តែ​ធានា​ចំពោះ​សញ្ញាបត្រ​ប្រសិន​បើ​ គេ​មើល​ឃើញ​ថា មិន​មាន​ប្រសិទ្ធភាព​គឺ​ត្រូវ​ទទួល​ទោស​ចំពោះ​ច្បាប់ ហើយ​ប្រសិន​បើ​សាកល​វិទ្យាល័យ​ណា​ល្អ​មាន​គេ​ទទួល​ស្គាល់​ច្រើន​គឺ​មាន សិស្ស​រៀន​ច្រើន»។

ឆ្លើយ​តប​ទៅ​នឹង​ការ​លើក​ឡើង​របស់​លោក​នាយក​រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី ហ៊ុន សែន ប្រធាន​សមាគម​គ្រូ​បង្រៀន​កម្ពុជា​ឯករាជ្យ​លោក រ៉ុង ឈុន បាន​ថ្លែង​ឲ្យ​ដឹង​ថា លោក​ស្វាគមន៍​ចំពោះ​កំណែ​ទម្រង់​នេះ​ពីព្រោះ​បាន​ផ្តល់​អំណាច​ដល់​សាកល​ វិទ្យាធិការ​នីមួយៗ​មាន​សិទ្ធិ​សម្រេច​ក្នុង​ការងារ​របស់​ខ្លួន​ដើម្បី​កំណែ ​ទម្រង់​កម្មវិធី​សិក្សា​របស់​គេ​ឲ្យ​មាន​ប្រសិទ្ធភាព ដោយ​មិន​ចាំ​បាច់​ប្រមូល​ផ្តុំ​គ្នា​ចាំ​តែ​រដ្ឋ​មន្ត្រី​ម្នាក់។

លោក​បាន​ថ្លែង​ឲ្យ​ដឹង​ទៀត​ថា៖ «ដើម្បី​ឲ្យ​កំណែ​ទម្រង់​នោះ​មាន​ប្រសិទ្ធភាព រដ្ឋាភិបាល​ត្រូវ​តែ​ចេញ​រាជក្រឹត្យ​ណា​មួយ​ដើម្បី​ចង​កុំ​ឲ្យ សាកល​វិទ្យាធិការ​យក​ឥទ្ធិពល​នេះ​ទៅ​ធ្វើ​អ្វី​មួយ​ផ្តេសផ្តាស​គឺ​ធ្វើ​យ៉ាង ​ណា​ដើម្បី​ឲ្យ​សញ្ញាបត្រ​នោះ​មាន​តម្លៃ​អាច​ទទួល​យក​បាន»៕
 

EUROPE: Preparing PhDs for work – Also outside academia

Jan Petter Myklebust06 February 2014 Issue No:306

 

The League of European Research Universities, or LERU, has published an ‘advice paper’ on Good Practice Elements in Doctoral Training. It informs the academic part of research training and is a repository of good ideas and practices by some of Europe’s leading PhD training institutions.

The most important messages highlighted in the paper are these: PhDs are increasingly drivers of their own professional development; and the training model in which the PhD candidate is heavily dependent on one supervisor is no longer robust.

Being drivers of their professional development is important for the writing of PhD theses, even more so with regard to obtaining competencies during doctoral training in transferable skills.

Supply opportunities where candidates can engage themselves to acquire transferable skills are extensively documented, and are diverse at member institutions of LERU, which is an association of research universities.

The good thing about the report is that over and over again it demonstrates that some of the most research-intensive universities in Europe are prioritising transferable skills, which are now being built into training programmes for doctoral candidates and, most frequently it seems, as elective course options and often in collaboration with other organisations.

The introduction presents 29 such transferable competencies like ‘working in teams’, ‘persisting in achieving long-term goals’ and ‘understanding the working of a specific high-level research-intensive environment’.

Such competencies are found in different courses such as master-classes in promoting creativity and risk-taking in novel research, toolkits to help doctoral researchers with information management in research, monitoring work progress to support students to finish their PhD successfully and on time – such as University College London’s Student log – and many more.

Other examples of innovative courses are the PhD employer forum at University College London, where a panel of speakers who themselves are PhD holders are invited to talk about their sector, career progression and the best routes into their position.

The university has also developed Leadership in Action, an ‘open’ programme helping researchers to initiate collaborative and interdisciplinary projects and to develop the “mental toughness and resilience that is needed to sail through the PhD”.

The University of Zurich has a total of 280 courses a year on the acquisition of funding, teaching, writing-publishing, job application training and other topics, and Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University has since 2006 had a Doc’Up association of PhD students who organise events such as breakfasts, aperitifs, dinners or discussion forums.

At the University of Edinburgh, new PhD students in many schools are assigned a thesis committee. The committees have three to five members, including both of the student’s supervisors and at least one independent person who has not been involved to any significant extent, either academically or administratively, with the student.

Students have reported that they particularly value having an external member of the thesis committee.

The Royal Society (2010) is quoted in the report as having found that more than 50% of doctoral candidates in the UK take up employment outside academia after a PhD and that only 3.5% end up in permanent academic positions.

There is no Danish member of LERU. Therefore there is no inclusion of experience with the industrial doctorate that has been operating in Denmark since the 1980s and has now been incorporated in the Marie-Sklodowska Curie programme under Horizon 2020.
 

CANADA How should we measure student success?

Grace Karram07 February 2014 Issue No:306

 

There is little consensus among Ontario’s stakeholders on what constitutes ‘student success’. Should institutions focus mainly on high completion rates, ensuring that students are successful in attaining their degrees? Or should students be encouraged to engage in a wide range of campus activities beyond their academics to develop well-rounded individuals?

Should government work with institutions to produce graduates that meet labour market needs, ensuring that students can acquire jobs in their fields? Or should students be encouraged to pursue what interests them, embarking on post-secondary education as a means of self-discovery?

These are just some of the questions raised at a higher education research symposium hosted by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, or OISE, University of Toronto, at an event on post-secondary education in Ontario – Canada’s most populous province – late last year.

It brought together a range of stakeholders from universities, colleges and the provincial government to consider how researchers should define and measure student success. Each speaker presented a different outlook on whether student success means degree completion, engagement on campus, relevant employment, personal fulfilment or increased salaries.

The event ended with working groups to facilitate research collaboration across sectors and chart a course for holistic student success.

Earnings vs social development

The research shows that attending post-secondary education in Canada is still a guaranteed investment that will increase employment earnings.

The 2011 National Household Survey indicates that the salaries of college (vocational) graduates are 61% higher than their counterparts who only hold a high school diploma. These findings were presented by Trent University’s Professor Torben Drewes, whose multi-year research provides strong impetus for individuals to attend post-secondary education.

Despite the allure of increased earnings, the student support group was quick to critique a solely monetary understanding of success.

Professor Tony Chambers, who developed OISE’s Centre for the Study of Students in Post-secondary Education, pointed out that post-secondary education offers individuals and communities numerous social benefits like decreased crime rates and increased civic engagement.

Employment vs engagement

For Ontario’s college sector, which has traditionally focused on vocational or applied education, notions of success are often linked to student employment. College programming is designed with employers in mind and industry stakeholders provide information on both their employment needs and satisfaction with recent graduates.

Adrienne Galway, special advisor to the president of George Brown College, presented at the research symposium on her institution’s key performance indicators. She used these provincial assessment indicators to show that high employment and satisfaction rates are possible when multiple interests are considered in programme design.

While there is definitely a need to transition students efficiently into the workforce, there is an understanding across Canadian institutions that degree completion and student success more broadly cannot be realised without engaging students in all aspects of campus life.

Toward this end Chris Conway, director of institutional research and planning at Queen’s University, provided an analysis of the National Survey of Student Engagement, or NSSE.

NSSE is used broadly to assess undergraduate student behaviours and institutional practices, such as participation in extra-curricular activities, face-time with professors or experiences in residence life.

Complex measurements

As Conway was quick to point out, measuring an abstract concept like student success is complex and needs to be done with precision.

The above approaches tend to fall on opposing sides of a measurement-complexity spectrum. Those that offer effective measurement tools often simplify student success into one concept like increased earning or employment. However, more nuanced notions of success such as engagement or social development are incredibly difficult to assess.

What several researchers called for in response were multi-point research studies that consider numerous indicators like NSSE, key performance indicators and others to give a holistic picture of student success in the province.

Most importantly, as student success officers from around the province pointed out, there is a need to include students in these processes. Student participation may hold the key to identifying and measuring successful outcomes in post-secondary education.

* Presentation slides and a video of speakers is available here.

* Grace Karram Stephenson is a higher and international education specialist with the Comparative, International and Development Education Centre in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto in Canada.

GLOBAL: The abuses of research evaluation

Yves Gingras07 February 2014 Issue No:306

The famous Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities, in which French institutions have not covered themselves in glory, made quite an impact when it was launched on the media and academic world in 2003. Since then, the debates around the various rankings of higher education institutions have continued.

Last August the French minister of research commented on this annual ranking, noting that French universities were slowly climbing the ladder, according to France Info – without explaining what that really meant in academic terms.

Many articles have, however, pointed out the perverse effects of the race to head rankings whose scientific value is almost zero.

An investigation by the American journal Science, published on 9 December 2011, showed for example that universities in Saudi Arabia had contacted highly cited researchers who were employed by other institutions around the world asking them to add the address of their institution to publications in exchange for a substantial fee.

Dummy affiliations

Such dummy affiliations, with no real impact on teaching and research in universities, allow marginal institutions to boost their position in the rankings of universities without having to develop any real scientific activities!

The researchers involved are complicit in practices that are more than ethically dubious. Bad faith allows some to defend themselves by saying that these ‘associate professor’ titles have only a symbolic value and promote collaboration, but few are really dupes since it is clear they are paid for lending their name and fame to institutions with which they have no really serious link – like months of local teaching or in situ research activities.

Less well known, and certainly less well documented publicly, is that accreditation bodies and rankings of business and management schools generate the same kind of immoral practices.

For although we could understand – even if we may disagree – that an academic institution might believe that it is useful to offer ‘productivity’ premiums to its researchers who publish in journals considered ‘prestigious’ to improve their visibility in a globalised scientific field, it is difficult to defend the negotiation of (formal or informal) agreements with researchers from other institutions simply so they can add an address to their publications in exchange for money.

I discovered this relatively hidden practice during the writing of my book Les dérives de l’évaluation de la recherche – The Abuses of Research Evaluation – just published by Raisons d’agir in Paris.

I learned in conversations with colleagues that some business schools and management faculties in France – and maybe elsewhere? – were using such practices, contacting some productive foreign researchers to ask them to add their addresses in exchange for relatively large amounts of money (several thousand euros per item!).

It is not surprising that business and management school staff, who are ‘knowledgeable’ in the field of commerce, have learned to monetise the symbolic capital of the most prominent researchers.

This is not a problem when the institution in question is really committed to this researcher and offers him or her a real job that allows the researcher to contribute directly to teaching and research that students of that institution can enjoy.

It is quite another thing when the goal is simply to improve their position in a ranking, or maintain accreditation, by artificially inflating the number of their publications in targeted magazines.

Intellectual fraud?

One wonders if this kind of activity does not in fact constitute a kind of intellectual fraud that is incompatible with the mission of an institution of higher education. Because even assuming that it is now necessary to engage in an academic boxing match, all blows should at least be above the belt...

Moreover, institutions that (wrongly) take their position in these rankings seriously do not seem aware of the unintended consequences and perverse effects they automatically generate, including the ironic result that some of their employees are contributing to improving the position of their ‘competitors’.

And if we cannot count on the moral fibre of directors and teaching staff to put an end to this situation, one would think that it is in the interests of institutions that are [artificially] in competition with each other in the rankings market to take steps to ensure that their researchers are not double agents.

After having worked hard to encourage researchers to clearly put their institutional address on publications so that the symbolic benefits are attributed to the right institution, it seems that the abuses of research evaluation will now force those same institutions to verify the validity and over-use of such addresses on these publications!

* Yves Gingras is a professor at the University of Quebec at Montreal, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (CIRST) and scientific director at l'Observatoire des sciences et des technologies (OST-UQAM). He has just published Les dérives de l'évaluation de la recherche. Du bon usage de la bibliométrie. This open letter was first published in Liberation.

UNITED STATES: Online learning comes of age

Richard Garrett07 February 2014 Issue No:306

 

Distance learning, not least the online version, has always been known for plenty of hype, a lot of growth and not much data. Even in the United States, where online higher education has boomed over the past decade, there were no comprehensive enrolment numbers.

In an attempt to address the gap, private outfits such as Sloan-C and Eduventures made do with special surveys and clever estimates.

Confirmation that online higher education has paid its dues and is here to stay, is the recent inclusion of distance learning data in the US federal government’s IPEDS – Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System – database.

The fact that inclusion comes 15 years after the online higher education growth ride began, means such decisions are not made lightly.

In the slow-and-steady business of official data collection, variables must have staying power, definitions must be commonplace and institutions must actually collect the numbers in reasonably reliable fashion.

While the federal data is concerned with multiple ‘distance’ modalities, all the US supply and demand evidence I’ve ever seen suggests all but a small fraction represents online delivery.

What the data reveals

What does the new data reveal?

In autumn 2012, there were just over two million undergraduates in the United States studying exclusively at a distance, plus about 650,000 graduate students. This represents about 11% of all undergraduate and about 22% of all graduate students.

We know from other sources that most of these students are in their late 20s and above, balancing college with job and family.

The ‘some distance’ students range from those taking one to many courses remotely, and it is not possible to distinguish majority from minority distance students. Overall, the ‘some distance’ students numbered about 2.6 million undergraduates and 225,000 graduate students.

Most of the ‘some distance’ undergraduates are just taking one or two courses online as part of an otherwise conventional experience, while many graduate students are enrolled in low residency programmes where the off-campus portion is conducted online.

It is reasonable to conclude that close to one-third of US graduate students are currently studying exclusively or majority online. Such a high ratio is testament to how far online learning has come.

Market concentration

A mere 20 institutions command one-third of the wholly distance market in the US – a mix of for-profit schools such as University of Phoenix, specialist distance learning non-profits such as Western Governors University, as well as one or two more ‘traditional’ universities such as Liberty University, a private religious institution that embraced online at scale, boasting almost 62,000 exclusively distance students in autumn 2012, the third highest total in the nation.

Market concentration by a handful of institutions emphasises that the majority are still wrestling with the medium, struggling with which programmes to offer, how to motivate faculty, which tools to use and how to thrive in an ever-more competitive environment.

Over the next few years, it will be interesting to see whether the big players lose ground, as some for-profits have already done, and the market fragments as a result, or whether leaders can make more of a virtue of scale from a student or regulator perspective.

In autumn 2012 more than 2,000 universities, colleges and campuses reported at least 50 distance learning students, suggesting plenty of institutions with further growth ambitions and an increasingly crowded market.

Local but at a distance

The IPEDS database indicates that exclusively distance enrolment in the US represents about 51% residents of the same state where the campus is located, about 45% residents from another US state, about 1.3% international and the tiny remainder unknown.

This distribution points to how ‘local’ so-called distance learning can be, propelled by the convenience of not having to attend campus rather than lack of access in rural areas. The onus is on institutions to demonstrate the benefit of studying at a far-off school, where online has to bear all or the vast majority of the instructional burden.

With online options at local institutions in every state, it may be more challenging for institutions to turn to online programming as a way to break out of local geography.

The very low international student ratio is a reminder that it has been very difficult for US or any other institutions to make a success of wholly online programmes across national borders.

It would be fascinating to know if the ‘some distance’ students are somewhat more international, suggesting that online alone remains too immature to truly break international markets.

There is no question that as the domestic online market gets more crowded, institutions are increasingly turning to international opportunities. The 1.3% international student share in autumn 2012 should caution schools that blended learning may be the way forward.

So now, finally, we have comprehensive student data for distance learning in the United States, even if enrolment by field of study still necessitates estimation.

With aggregated data also available for other big English-speaking countries like Australia and the United Kingdom, the global puzzle is a little less vexing.

The challenge for US institutions is to continue to hone a differentiated strategy, whether domestic or international, in this complex, crowded and now better-illuminated online market.

* Richard Garrett is director of performance analytics, North America, representing i-graduate and Benchmark +, both part of Tribal Group. He was formerly at Eduventures, where he led the company’s work in online higher education. Email: Richard.Garrett@i-graduate.org.
 

THAILAND: Leading the way on regional integration of HE in Asia?

Darren J McDermott07 February 2014 Issue No:306

 

Thailand is front and centre in the news again and unfortunately for the same political impasse and factional division that has defined much of its last decade. In another week of attrition for the incumbent administration and its detractors, international higher education and ASEAN integration will not be high on the agenda.

But perhaps it is worth reflecting on some positive developments that have taken place in Thai international education over the past while, including the expansion of a student mobility programme which, similar to Erasmus in Europe, could drive further integration .

With under a year to go until the much-vaunted formalisation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC 2015), 2014 is a critical year. A recent Asian Development Bank, or ADB, study – the ASEAN Economic Community Business Survey – found the Thai business community’s awareness of integration running at 70%. This contrasts starkly with awareness levels in Singapore (14%), the Philippines (20%), Indonesia (23%) and Vietnam (24%).

The ADB explained these findings as being due to the “extent to which the firms are affected by regional, cross-border economic issues”.

Levels of awareness of AEC integration are most certainly greater within Thai than other ASEAN higher education institutions.

This is largely due to the activities of national and supranational bodies such as the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Regional Centre for Higher Education and Development, SEAMEO RIHED, and the ASEAN University Network or AUN, both of which have their regional headquarters in Bangkok.

In this sense, Thailand has become a seat of policy formulation in the ASEAN’s education integration efforts.

SEAMEO RIHED and the AUN are key partners in the fulfilment of the ASEAN’s Five-Year Work Plan on Education 2011-2015, in which one of the key priorities is the promotion of cross-border mobility and internationalisation of education.

This is providing the impetus to develop an ASEAN Common Higher Education Area in the same vein as that of the European Higher Education Area. The similarities are striking and it is not surprising that the European experience of harmonisation through the Bologna process has been seen as useful in charting a similar course in Southeast Asia.

European Union

In March 2011 the European Union launched the Thailand-EU Cooperation Facility with the Royal Thai government. The programme focused on furthering Thailand's policy dialogue and cooperation with the EU.

A major facet of the cooperation centred on developing capacity in Thai higher education as it moves towards ASEAN integration, leading to greater inter-regional cooperation between institutions, quality assurance agencies and international networks.

The policy dialogue components of the cooperation took the form of seminars and workshops by European and Thai education experts supported by the Royal Thai Government Office of the Higher Education Commission and the European Union Delegation to Thailand.

Among the themes presented were the tuning of higher education structures to support the development of the Thai Qualifications Framework, comparative studies on learning from the Bologna process and evaluation of Thai and ASEAN student mobility programmes.

The Thailand-EU Cooperation Facility concluded at the end of 2013, but the EU is renewing its engagement with Thai and ASEAN higher education in 2014 under the EU Support to Higher Education in the ASEAN Region – EU SHARE – programme.

EU SHARE will be launched early this year and its objectives are to strengthen regional cooperation and enhance the quality assurance, regional competitiveness and internationalisation of ASEAN higher education institutions towards AEC 2015 and beyond.

The five-year programme can draw on funding of over €10 million (US$13.5 million), of which around half will be committed to driving mobility intra-ASEAN states and from ASEAN to the EU.

Currently leading the charge in the expansion of regional mobility between Thailand and its ASEAN partners is the ASEAN International Mobility for Students, or AIMS, programme.

AIMS evolved out of the First Malaysia-Indonesia-Thailand (M-I-T) Meeting on Student Mobility held in Bangkok in August 2009.

The meeting was attended by education policy-makers from all three countries and the main thrust of discussions centred on priority curricula for mobility, the duration of the mobility period and the number of university participants and student participants.

Meetings have been held biannually since. The M-I-T programme was renamed AIMS in 2012. It is currently being implemented at seven universities throughout Thailand and 52 others in the region.

Taking AIMS

The AIMS programme has also caught the attention of the ASEAN Dialogue Partners, Japan, South Korea and China. Delegates from Japan’s Ministry of Education and universities were present at the Sixth Review Meeting of the AIMS programme in Chiang Rai, Thailand, in November last year.

This year, universities in Japan including Tsukuba University and Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology will be among the first non-ASEAN institutions to offer the programme to their students.

Much as Erasmus has been intrinsic to driving mobility and the provision of support structures through the Bologna process, the expansion of the AIMS programme across the ASEAN is seen as a significant catalyst for greater integration and the engendering of quality at the core of member states’ education systems.

The seven Thai universities participating in the AIMS programme are keen to see its expansion and welcome the opportunity it provides to develop stronger regional partnerships.

Thailand is very well placed along with its neighbours in Malaysia and Indonesia at the intersection of developments in the further integration and harmonisation of ASEAN higher education provision.

There is still work to be done on formalising and aligning structures of quality assurance, credit transfer and qualifications frameworks, but this is continuing apace.

Thailand too has the potential to promote itself as a regional hub for education, so the establishment of a national brand for Thai higher education with a defined strategy on driving inbound mobility is also salient at this point.

Once Thailand exits this latest political cul-de-sac, one hopes it can put factional politics away for a more regionalist approach, which will surely 'raise all boats'.

* Darren J McDermott is an international education development consultant.