Rectors' Meeting in Brussels

Photo: March 6th - 10th, EURASHE (European Association of Institutions in Higher Education) and project coordinator co-organised meeting of twelve leading representatives from TACTIC partner universities from Cambodia, Vietnam and Mongolia. The Rectors’ Meeting took place in Brussels, Belgium in the EURASHE headquarters.

“UBB Delegates attended the TACTIC Rectors’ Meeting in Brussels” Responding to the official invitation from the European Association of Institution in Higher Education (EURASHE) under TACTIC Erasmus+ project, two UBB delegates, H.E. Sieng Emtotim, Rector of UBB and Dr. Sam Rany, Director of Institute of Foreign Languages have attended the Rectors’ Meeting at Brussels, Belgium on March 6-10, 2017. This meeting aims at providing educational leadership training for top leaders from six Asian Universities in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Mongolia, and strengthens the international cooperation among these countries. UBB delegate acquired new knowledge related the roles of stakeholder in development of European Higher Education Institutions including European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), European Students Union (ESU), European University Association (EUA), and EURASHE. Furthermore, they learned how to apply for some academic and research projects funded by European Commission and agencies. The last day, our delegate has visited the Odisee University in Brussels.

The 3 days intensive program started by the TACTIC presentation by the coordinator of the project Violeta Osouchova from Masaryk University, Brno. Thereafter the presentations of each of the partner institutions followed with emphasis on the expectations from TACTIC project. After the lunch break, EURASHE Project Manager Marko Grdosic and Policy and Communications Officer Alexandre Wipf led the evaluating discussion about strengths and weaknesses of the partner universities, followed by two European Commission representatives Manel Laporta Grau and Antonella Giorgio who covered equally important aspect of the cooperation - the role and significance of European Union in supporting the capacity building in higher education outside European Union.

Second part of the program included presentations on importance of European associations for representing the interests of higher education institutions and role of stakeholders in development of higher education in Europe. Speeches were given by Michal Karpisek, EURASHE Secretary General, Paula Ranne (ENQA, European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education) and Anna Widegren (ESU, European Students Union).

On the last day of the program the participants visited ODISEE University College in Brussels. The day followed by presentation on management of higher education institutions in Belgium by Johan Cloet, former EURASHE Secretary General, former General Director of Lessius University College/Vice-General Director of Thomas More University College in Antwerp, Belgium. After that, with reflections of the participants the Rectors’ Meeting was officially closed. We are looking forward to the meeting of all partners in Hanoi, Vietnam, in December 2017.

A Colonial University for South-East Asia? The Indochinese University in Hanoi (1906-1945)

A Colonial University for South-East Asia? The Indochinese University in Hanoi (1906-1945)
By Sara Legrandjacques

(Sourse: Kyotoreview.org): The article is available at: https://kyotoreview.org/yav/indochinese-colonial-university-for-south-east-asia/

In 2006, Hanoi University celebrated its 100th birthday. In his celebratory speech, the University Rector, Prof. Dao Trong Thi, emphasized the importance of the institution’s history. Referring to its colonial birth, he highlighted almost a century of Vietnamese higher education.

Created by the French twice, in 1906 and 1917, the Indochinese University particularly developed in the interwar period after its rocky start. It remained open during WWII before its appropriation by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945. It might be suspected that this post-colonial era would have reduced its zone of influence; but from the start, Hanoi University always had striven to be a regional academic hub, especially in South-East Asia.

The 1906 foundation decree by Governor General Paul Beau (1902-1908) introduced this regional goal:

 “A set of higher classes for students from the colony and neighbouring lands is established, in Indochina, under the name “Indochinese University”. This institution aims to expand in the Far-East, especially through the use of French language, European scientific knowledge and methods.” ¹

Since 1902, Chinese students had started to enrol in Indochinese higher schools, mainly Hanoi School of Medicine.The university tried to enlarge this Asian recruitment in order to increase the French influence in the area through the propagation of French knowledge. At that time, Japanese higher schools, renovated in the 1880s, were attracting increasing numbers of students. The British were also creating new institutions in Hong Kong and Singapore. A French institution was seen as a way to compete with them and to prevent local students leaving the colony. As early as 1906, Paul Beau sent letters to French diplomatic representatives in China, Siam, the Philippines, Indonesia and a few more distant lands including Japan and India as an effort to attract potential students. But this regional advertising was hardly efficient: South-East Asian students stayed away from Hanoi and the first – and only – year group was comprised solely of Vietnamese, mostly from the Tonkin region of northern Vietnam. This project suddenly floundered: having opened in 1907, the Indochinese University was closed in 1908 because of financial issues.

This first failure did not prevent some Asian students from heading to Indochina: Chinese students from the borderlands, especially Yunnan, continued seeking out the school of medicine in the years that followed. They generally frequented Franco-Annamite or Franco-Indigenous schools in China. Furthermore, some of them were resuming their studies. Lieou Han Kouang from Kai-Houa (Yunnan), quit a military career to head to Hanoi to study medicine. This non-commissioned officer had learnt French in Shanghai and Mongtseu. After having his so-called “worthiness” checked, and thanks to support from Hanoi School of Medicine’s French director, Dr Cognacq, he left China on February 2, 1918 and enrolled in the school. ² The Hanoi University would reopen in 1917-1918 for the second time. However, French authorities were becoming increasingly suspicious of cross-border nationalism so some new rules were dedicated to this specific audience. Students were admitted for precise purposes, like helping and assisting French medical doctors in their country of origin.

Did the reopening of Hanoi University in 1917-1918 give a new momentum to this regional influence? It seems difficult to say. The renewed institution was comprised of five schools: medicine, public works, administration, teaching, and agriculture-forestry. Despite students from Southern China being attracted to Hanoi particularly by medical studies, this assessment must be put into perspective: most of the Chinese, according to the French historian Daniel Hémery, would rather chose France, ³ or other Asian, European or American countries, instead of Indochina. The Indochinese University’s audience remained local, all the more so as no mention of a regional purpose was included as part of Governor General Albert Sarraut’s plan in 1917:

“I’ve established a Board for Higher Education whose mission is to prepare the creation, organize the system and formulate the curriculum of higher schools that will be opened in Indochina to French and Native students and will be gathered to constitute the Indochinese University.” ⁴

When the Business School (1920), the School of Applied Sciences (1922), the School of Fine Arts (1924),  the School of Veterinary Training (1928) and finally, a Law School (1931) opened, this local trend still remained. By 1929, 511 students frequented the university. About half of them came from Tonkin, the northern province of Indochina where Hanoi is located. Around one-quarter were from the South, Cochinchina, and between 10 percent and 15 percent were from Annam (central Vietnam). In a nutshell, the Indochinese University was above all else a Vietnamese University. It was neglected by the Cambodians and the Laotians, even though their lands were parts of French Indochina. As Buddhist education was preserved by the colonizers, they were taught in pagoda schools, inside or outside the colony, in Siam for instance.

This trend would become noticeable in the later colonial period, when in 1939-1940, 732 students were studying at Hanoi university (table 1).

	French	Tonkin	Annam	Cochinchina	Cambodia	Laos	Chinese & Others

Biography of Dr. Sam Rany, Cambodia

Dr. Sam Rany was born on March 11, 1982, in Kampot province, Cambodia. He is currently the Vice-Rector of the National University of Battambang (NUBB), which is a public university in the northwestern part of Cambodia. Dr. Rany is the former Director of the Institute of Foreign Languages at UBB, from September 2008 to May 2017. He has also been a co-director of the Confucius Institute of the National University of Battambang (CINUBB) since 2019. 

He earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from the School of Educational Studies, University of Science Malaysia (USM) in 2016. His doctoral thesis is entitled "The Influence of Institutional Integration Factors on Students’ Intellectual Development: A Case Study of Three Cambodian Public Universities". He obtained a Certificate of General Administration from the Royal School of Administration, Cambodia in May 2017, and he received a Certificate of E-Teacher Certificate of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) from Oregon University and a Certificate of Using Educational Technology in the English Language Classroom from Iowa State University, sponsored by the U.S. Embassy to Cambodia in 2010 and 2021 prospectively. He graduated with Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Law (LL.B & LL.M) from the Royal University of Law and Economics (RULE), Cambodia in 2004 and 2007 respectively. His bachelor's thesis is entitled" State Responsibility in the International Law", and his master's thesis is entitled" The Notions of Goodfaith in the International Sale of Goods."

 

He has also been a lecturer at NUBB since 2008; he has worked closely with the US Embassy in terms of educational cooperation since 2009. He had hosted three US English Fellows, Mrs. Connie Leonard, Dr. Virginia Simmons, and Mr. Adam Aultowski, who had been sent by the US Embassy to work at the University of Battambang. He has successfully completed a two-year project with 25 disadvantaged students funded by the US Embassy, namely, the English Access Micro-scholarship Program from 2015 to 2017 at NUBB. He is also actively involved in some project coordinators' work, including Erasmus+, KOICA, JICA, USAID, and World Bank (HEIP). His areas of interest included English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Legal Studies, Public Policy and Public Administration, Cambodian Educational History, Higher Education Leadership and Administration, Educational Assessment, and other Social Science Research.

JENESYS 2016 Home-Stay Program for Young Cambodia Government Officials in OSAKI City

Japan (5-6 November 2016): It was my great pleasure and privilege to attend the homestay program organized by the JICE in Osaki City and Miyagi Prefecture. I and two other colleagues, Mr. Sun Sokhet and Va Vannak, from the Royal School of Administration had stayed with a Japanese family, Mr. Aoki Akira and Mrs. Aoki. Mr. Akira is retired high school teacher and a member of the BoD of the Non Profit Organization (NPO) in Osaki. 

During our stay with their family, we have learned a lot about Japanese cultures, living styles, and other routine activities. The most remembered activities are playing with autism children, walking around the village, farming some vegetables, and practicing mediation (concentration). Our sincere thanks go to their family who accepted us to stay in their house and treated us very well.

#JENESYS 2016
#JICE
#CAMBODIA

Young Cambodian Government Officials attended JENSYS 2016 (2nd Batch, Politics)

Japan (November 17, 2016): Twenty-five participants from the Royal School of Administration attended the Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange for Students and Youths (JENESYS 2016) that had been organized by the Japan International Cooperation Center (JICE) on the Theme of Politics from November 1, 2016, to November 2016. This program aims to provide good cooperation and understanding of Japanese culture and society to strengthen the spirit of solidarity with Asia through youth exchange activities.

Out of 550 students in the Royal School of Administration, I was selected to attend this crucial program among other 24 participants in Japan. I have obtained new knowledge and experiences of Japanese culture, public administration, national infrastructure, modernization, and people. I have attended one lecture on "National Public Employees in Japan" offered by Associate Professor Watanabe Yasuyuki, from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), Japan. I have learned a lot from his perspectives and experiences on how to reform the civil services in the country. Also, he mainly focused on the professional code ethics of the civil servants or national public employees and other regulations. Japan is a good model country in terms of transparency and accountability. I also visited the National Diet of Japan (the House of Councillors), and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Most interestingly, I visited the region of MINAMI SANRIKU which was destroyed by Sunami on March 11, 2011. The counselor has shared experiences on how to manage the national disasters and restore this region.

Moreover, I experienced two days of a homestay program with a Japanese family in Osaki City. I have learned Onseb Somuries at the Sebsyokan Hotel.

Taking in this blogger, I would like to express my profound thanks to the JICE and the Japanese government that provided me golden opportunities to explore Japanese culture, politics, and people. 

China’s Back Yard Cambodia

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/world/2015/09/05/the-push-and-pull-of-chinas-orbit/

CHINA: Foreign student scholarships spark anger as fees rise

Yojana Sharma24 October 2014 Issue No:340

 

 A new plan to lure foreign students with generous scholarships by China’s eastern Jiangsu province, host to a number of foreign branch campuses, has sparked anger in the province over resources being directed towards “wealthy foreigners” while Chinese students struggle with a rising fee burden.

Resentment has also grown as foreign students are provided with what is seen as far superior accommodation to that available for local students.

In mid-August, the province’s education bureau launched a ‘Study in Jiangsu’ programme to develop the province into a major destination for foreign students. Under the programme, annual scholarships of 50,000 to 90,000 yuan (US$8,200 to US$14,700) will be made available to applicants from overseas wanting to study at universities, including joint overseas ventures such as Duke Kunshan University and Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.

Another 50 publicly funded universities in Jiangsu, many in the popular student cities of Nanjing and Suzhou are permitted to take foreign students.

Yang Shubing, director of publicity at the Jiangsu education bureau said the province had some 18,700 foreign students by the end of last year. “To encourage more such students, the provincial scholarship total has reached 15 million yuan each year,” he was quoted in official media as saying.

But the plan has sparked outrage, with local residents criticising the scheme on China’s microblog site Weibo, in particular because it was announced at a time when universities in at least nine Chinese provinces were introducing steep tuition fees rises for local students this year.

In some cases fee rises for locals will be as much as 50% compared to last year or even 75%, as was reported for Ningxia Autonomous Region – a poorer region in western China.

Scholarships and grants for local students have not risen in line with these sharp increases, angering students and families, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported in August.

Fees burden

University tuition fees for local students remained at around 5,000 yuan (US$817) a year since 2006, when the government imposed a five-year moratorium on raising university fees.

Education commentator Bing Qi said 5,000 yuan today was around 18% of urban residents' per capita disposable income and 56% of rural residents’.

“Therefore, tuition fees should be reduced, not increased,” Bing said, adding in a commentary in Beijing Youth Daily that “the burden on households remains high despite rising incomes in recent years”.

Official figures show that in 2013, the overall value of scholarships totalled 57.41 billion yuan (US$9.38 billion) for 2.65 million Chinese students – or around 1500 yuan (US$245) per student.

“Contrast this figure with the sum Jiangsu is prepared to grant foreign students and it does appear that the concern about ‘discrimination’ or ‘double standards’ is not entirely misplaced,” Shanghai Daily commented.

Jiangsu’s “quest for a leading position in the global education landscape was justified only if it did not come at a cost to locals”, the paper added.

Citizens vented their anger online saying if the government had money for education scholarships it should not be spent on ‘foreign elites’ when many students in poor rural areas were unable to afford fees.

Boosting foreign student numbers

Jiangsu is not alone, however: Shanghai is aiming to attract 70,000 foreign students by 2015, up from 40,000 this year and will increase the number of scholarships for those on longer degree programmes.

Some will be worth 200,000 yuan or US$32,700 over four years of study, including accommodation costs – a huge sum compared to loans and grants for local students, even when taking account of the higher accommodation costs for foreigners.

The Beijing government is actively trying to attract more foreign students and has said it will provide scholarships for as many as 50,000 international students by 2015. Some 18,000 scholarships have been made available for students from Africa since 2013.

Although the majority of foreign students in China are currently from the US and South Korea, Liu Jinghui, secretary-general of the China Scholarship Council, has said Chinese higher education would be promoted more strongly in Europe. Liu said he hoped to increase the 1,087 scholarships provided to European students last year.

As the barrage of online criticism against funds being “diverted” to foreign students rose, the China Development Bank last month announced 14 billion yuan of “new loans” for local students this year through the state loan scheme that benefits some 2.5 million students.

The bank said the cap on the loan amount would be increased by 33% to 8,000 yuan (US$1,300), up from 6,000 yuan previously for each undergraduate applicant. Graduate students will receive up to 12,000 yuan.

The increase of 2,000 yuan per undergraduate student is the first such increase since 2002, with official inflation running at an annual rate of 5 to 6% in recent years. Students in some provinces, including Hainan, held protests last year about the rise in fees and other costs, including canteen food.

"The previous [loan] standard was implemented for more than a dozen years, and many students with financial difficulties said it was far from enough," said Zhang Guangming, director of the China National Centre for Student Financial Aid under the Education Ministry.

FRANCE: Low fees but jobs needed to meet costs

Jane Marshall24 October 2014 Issue No:340

 

Students in French universities pay among the lowest fees in Europe. But although education ministers claim that, despite austerity, funding for student benefits has kept up with purchasing power, student organisations say the cost of starting the new academic year for students is up to 2% higher than last year.

The government has not gone down the route of charging students high sums for university studies, and fixes the modest rates by decree. For the 2014-15 academic year, enrolment fees have increased by 0.7%, to €184 (US$236) annually for a three-year licence (bachelor equivalent) course, €256 for a masters, €391 for a doctorate and €610 for an engineering diploma.

But while students do not have to worry about high fees, they need money to live on during the university year. In its inquiry La Vie Étudiante: Repères, the Observatoire de la Vie Étudiante, or OVE, identified the main sources of student income.

The most common was family support, accounting for 30% of student resources and paying an average of €308 a month. This was followed closely by wages from paid work, at 29%, providing €618 on average; then public benefits such as those from the government and from local and regional authorities, representing 25%, and an average of €307 monthly.

Other sources, each representing 6% or less of student income, included contributions from a spouse or partner, savings, and, at a bare 1%, student loans, which are available from some banks under government guarantee.

Nearly one in two students did paid work during the university year, according to OVE, which found that 20% who had a job considered it had a ‘negative impact’ on their studies. More than half considered their employment essential for survival.

OVE reported that a third of the students lived with one or both parents, a third in rented accommodation either alone or in a couple with or without children, and 12% were in private rentals shared with others. Only 11% lived in subsidised university housing. Rents averaged €426 across the country, and were highest in Paris at €597.

The 2015 budget allocated €2.5 billion (US$3.2 billion) for ‘student life’, an increase of €42 million, or 1.7%, over last year.

In September, marking the start of the university year, the Minister for Education, Higher Education and Research, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, and State Secretary for Higher Education and Research, Geneviève Fioraso, stressed their first priority was to ensure academic success for the greatest number of students, with more help for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Among measures they announced were increased grants for more students, continuation of an intensive student housing construction plan and government rental guarantees for those looking for accommodation in the private sector.

However, the government has this year discontinued merit grants, previously awarded to about 7,000 new students each year for three years, in favour of increasing grants paid according to social criteria.

In spite of more generous benefits, students and their families face stiff cost-of-living increases at the start of this academic year, according to the Fédération des Associations Générales Étudiantes, or FAGE, and the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France, or UNEF.

FAGE calculated a student had to spend an average of €2,525 to start the university year, 1.5% more than last year while UNEF reckoned the increase was 2%, “four times the rate of inflation for the past year”. The main causes were higher rents, and increases in unavoidable expenses such as enrolment fees, university meals and social security payments.

While previous reforms had improved the purchasing power of 160,000 students by cutting their study costs by 7.4%, the remainder faced substantial increases of 5.5% for those on grants, and 3.6% for the others, claimed UNEF.

The union said grants reform was “still far from the promise of a student autonomy allowance” made by François Hollande during his presidential campaign, and it urged further benefit increases and widened access for more students.

FAGE asserted that 28% of students had to take paid work to get by, and that there was a 50% risk of academic failure for those who worked more than 12 hours a week. It called for the government to open urgently a “comprehensive and ambitious plan for students’ living conditions”.