Category Archives: News

The Last News Post

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Hello Everyone! 🙂

For this last post, I wanted to tie in this week’s article with our earlier (way earlier) discussion of where the next leading university in Asia will be. In CJ’s presentation [link: https://prezi.com/ch9l6zynilgb/copy-of-mind-mapping-template/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy], it was concluded that Singapore and the ZhuJiang Delta Area of China (including Hong Kong) would be among the top spots for a leading university.

The World Economic Forum summarized Times Higher Education’s identification of 53 “international powerhouses” – those “institutions that have the best chance of catching up with (and even overtaking) the world’s best universities.” Here is the listing and the article link:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/universities-overtake-harvard-cambridge-oxford?utm_content=buffer3ecda&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Of the Asian countries, Singapore is listed first according to current world ranking, followed by China, and then three schools in Hong Kong. This lines up well with CJ’s predictions in her presentation.

Additionally, HSBC does a yearly expat survey. Over 26,000 expats were surveyed on most of the factors CJ identified as important contributions to a leading university in a given country. I think the connection between expats and universities, even if the expats did not attend a university in the country they reside in, is important. If there is a large, healthy, and productive expat community in a country and/or metropolis, it shows promise for the future for the development of the next “international powerhouse.” Singapore, unsurprisingly at this point, is number 1. Hong Kong is number 13. Here is the link their comparison. The second link is to the home survey which is super neat to explore!

https://www.expatexplorer.hsbc.com/survey/country/singapore/hong-kong

https://www.expatexplorer.hsbc.com/survey/

Based off of what I’ve learned in this class including lecture, presentations, readings, and my own research for this blog, I think I can declare with confidence that the next leading university will be in Singapore (pending any significant changes from other countries and their universities of course!)

What do you think of the connection between expat satisfaction and leading university location? Where have you concluded that the next leading university in Asia will be?

 

Survey Finds Foreign Students Aren’t Applying to American Colleges

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A new survey reveals that nearly 40% of universities in the US experienced a decline in international applications from countries, China, India, and especially the Middle East. http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/survey-finds-foreign-students-aren-t-applying-american-colleges-n738411

According to the survey, the most frequently noted concerns of international students and their families include:

– Perception of a rise in student visa denials at U.S. embassies and consulates in China, India, and Nepal.

– Perception that the climate in the U.S. is now less welcoming to individuals from other countries.

– Concerns that benefits and restrictions around visas could change, especially around the ability to travel, re-entry after travel, and employment opportunities.

– Concerns that the Executive Order travel ban might expand to include additional countries.

A decrease in international enrollment at some schools could have a great economic impact, given that international students brought more than $32 billion in 2016 into the U.S. economy.

<Discussion questions>

What is the impact of the US international students decline on the US other than economic impact mentioned above? What is the effect on higher education institutes in the world?

<Reference>

College applications from international students are taking a hit

https://www.masterstudies.com/news/New-Trends-in-US-International-Student-Enrollment-1535/

http://www.aacrao.org/docs/default-source/TrendTopic/Immigration/intl-survey-results-released.pdf?sfvrsn=0

Comparative Data Show that Chinese Progress in Higher Education yet to Turn Tide

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In the past few weeks, we talked about higher education in Japan, South Korea, China, and India. Recently, THE DataPoints (Times Higher Education) provides a set of useful and interesting comparative data between China and three major Asian countries respectively: India, South Korea, and Japan.

Here is the news published on THE:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/chinas-universities-significant-progress-more-do

The article reveals where Chinese universities are starting to outpace their rivals, as well as illustrating where China is still relatively lagging behind.

China VS India

chinavindia1500

The China-India chart shows that China has surpassed India on most measures. It can be attributed to several reasons:

  • The higher HE investment of the Chinese government
  • Successful and dynamic policies attracting its talents back home and international students studying in China
  • The development of research collaborations between industry and academia

However, one metric proves a blog posted two weeks ago that India has a higher number of doctorates awarded than China.

China VS South Korea

chinavsouthkorea1500

The article gives a high rating to South Korea’s HE system. THE data scientist said that “South Korea was the shining example to any education ministry about how to improve their university sector.” There are two key aspects that China needs to catch up:

  • The diversity of money sources – the government, industry, and student fees
  • International collaboration – a key way to improve citation impact

However, although there is a gap between the two countries now, the article is optimistic about the future development of China’s higher education because of the outpouring of support from the Chinese government.

China VS Japan

chinavjapan1500

I remember that Sho talked about the evolution of the balance between private and public funding in Japan’s HE. The China-Japan chart shows that Japan’s universities are behind both China and South Korea on the amount of income that universities are attracting from industry.

It is very interesting that Japan has a much higher staff-to-student ratio than China. However, the article claims that it is because of the collapse of the youth population in the country and it brings serious challenges for Japan to keep its leading role in Asia and globally.

 

Questions: Do you think that the data and metrics THE Data picked up reflect the real situation in your country? Why? Does this article present the future layout of Asian HE?

“Nationalizing” Higher Education Curriculum

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RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat speaking during the conference in Delhi University

Article: https://thewire.in/119147/rss-du-workshop-indian-values/

In a conference organized by the RSS (a right-wing Hindu volunteer organization linked to the ruling party of India) at the Delhi University and attended by over 700 academics from universities across the country, one of the discussion topic was about how to instill “a true nationalist narrative in [India’s] educational system”, “reach out to students with an Indianized form of educational content”. Some conference participants believe that the content taught in Indian university “is all about the west” and fails to teach students the achievements and contributions of Indians to the world.

From your personal experience or otherwise, do you agree that university curriculums or the teaching of academics in higher education tend to be overly western-centric?  In fact, recently, there was a campaign by students from London’s School of Oriental and African Studies to “decolonize the curriculum”[1] as they claimed that white/western philosophers and their theories/view dominated what is being taught at the university. If intellectual diversity along cultural lines is desirable, how can we ensure this in universities?

The article also raises the larger question on the purpose of education, especially from the perspective of the government. Do you agree that universities should play a role in fostering nationalism strengthening the sense of national identity? If so, what about foreign students in the universities? Has your country tried to “nationalize” the higher education curriculum in any way?

[1] See: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/soas-university-of-london-students-union-white-philosophers-curriculum-syllabus-a7515716.html, https://www.soas.ac.uk/blogs/study/decolonising-curriculum-whats-the-fuss/, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/10/soas-students-study-philosophy-africa-asia-european-pc-snowflakes

The Next Higher Education Leader in Asia – Adding Another Indicator to the Discussion.

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A recurring question in our course is who the next leader in higher education (in Asia) will be. The World Economic Forum recently released an article on countries with the most doctoral graduates across the world. Unsurprisingly, the current leader in higher education – the US – leaves the rest of the world behind by a wide margin.

Based on this, do you think we should add the number of PHDs a country is producing to our discussion on who the next leader in higher education will be? While you may find shortcomings of using this approach based on our country-level class discussions, do you think it will be useful in combination with other indicators? If yes, which ones?

In your discussion, you can consider that according to this measure, India, followed by Japan and South Korea, are most likely to emerge as leaders.

Read the full article, which includes details on the source countries of PHDs here: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/02/countries-with-most-doctoral-graduates/

Image source – https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/02/countries-with-most-doctoral-graduates/

Taiwan and the “One China” Pledge

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Hello!

To compliment this week’s discussion on Taiwan and next week’s discussion on China, I found an article about “One China” agreements between Taiwanese and Chinese universities. Due to various factors that we’ve discussed in class, such as aging populations and low birth rates, universities are relying on international students to stay open. Chinese students have been allowed to study in Taiwan since 2011, and now make up more than a third of Taiwan’s international college students. In order for many Chinese Universities to allow their students to study in Taiwan, Taiwanese universities have made agreements with the Chinese universities to not offer courses that include politically sensitive topics, such as “one China, one Taiwan” or Taiwanese independence.

What are the pros and cons of a policy like this?

Are there comparable policies between other countries’ universities?

Will these “One China” agreements really prevent Chinese students from being exposed to politically sensitive topics while studying in Taiwan?

 

China Vs. Taiwan’s Academic Freedom

http://thediplomat.com/2017/03/china-vs-taiwans-academic-freedom/

 

Job-Hunting Season Kicks Off in Japan

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How can university students get a job in your country? Japan has a unique job hunting custom. Companies decide the job hunting schedule each year, affecting students significantly. In this year, companies started to hold seminars from March 1st and will be allowed to fully begin selection procedures, such as interviews and written exams, from June. http://www.nippon.com/en/behind/l10171/

You can learn more about the Japanese job hunting tradition from here: http://www.nippon.com/en/column/g00365/

I would appreciate it if you could share your countries’ cases about job hunting.

HE: Are Separate Admission Processes for International Students Fair in China?

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international-students-in-china2

On this Friday, a new round of Fudan University Debate will get under way again. As one of the former debate team instructors, my student sent me the first-round debate’s topic: Are Separate Admission Processes for International Students Fair in China? Coincidentally, when searching for this week’s news to share, I happened to see an article posted on the recent newsletter of University World News for the same subject. Thus, our group gives me an opportunity to share this interesting piece along with the controversial topic for discussion.

Here is the news:

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20170222122830767

After Tsinghua University announced last year that foreign applicants would not have to take a standardized writing test for undergraduate courses, there were lots of concerns about the unfair admissions procedures that students with foreign passports are gaining relatively easy access to the country’s most prestigious institutions. Recently, Tsinghua published the complete new rules for the admission of foreign students which pushed the topic to the forefront again.

The critics argue that higher education in China is becoming a serious social problem. They believe that if other colleges and universities introduce similar rules, it would increase the education injustice and inequality in China. They also worry about the student quality and compare it to the hard process Chinese outstanding students apply for the U.S. top universities.

Another sensitive issue raised in the article is about the generous scholarship offered by the government for foreign students. Even in Fudan, it is the same situation that the percentage of foreign students who can get scholarships is much higher than domestic students. Some local students’ parents argue that why they pay the tax to subsidize foreign students at the end.

But others defended the policy. The purpose of the new policy is to expand the scope of applications and thus make the process more competitive than before. It is necessary because the percentage of international students is an important measure of a university’s global influence.

What is your opinion on this topic? Do you think whether Tsinghua’s decision is wise or not?

What is the education equity? Does the new admission policy and scholarship policy violate the principle of higher education?

Is it really good to have a rapid increase number of foreign students for Chinese universities?

Do other Asian countries have the similar situation or good example to share?

Related posts:

Ambitious drive for foreign students is paying off

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20160916134031945

The number of international student enrollment in China:

http://www.iie.org/Services/Project-Atlas/China/International-Students-In-China#.WLR6dTsrI2w

international-students-in-china

Demographic Changes and the Higher Education Sector

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In light of the upcoming class on the impact of Japan’s demographic challenges on its higher education sector, we found this article on how the Korean government has been dealing with similar problems of an ageing and shrinking population to be an interesting piece for discussion.

Article available at: http://thediplomat.com/2017/02/impeachment-scandals-overlooked-victim-koreas-higher-education/

Falling fertility rates, ageing populations and shrinking workforces are issues in many developed East Asian countries: https://vulcanpost.com/4278/something-bizarre-is-happening-east-asians-are-having-lesser-babies/

The birthrate in Korea has been falling over the last 30 years, resulting in an ever smaller cohort of students entering higher education institutions. The article discusses several strategies that the Korea government has implemented (expansion of student loan programs, reducing funding to universities that perform poorly in rankings) and recommends that Korea needs to “shift to a more globalized platform of education… for longevity”, for instance, through attracting more international students, once again highlighting the prevalence of the discourse and strategy of internationalization and globality in higher education. The author also points out several differences between the situation in Korea and Japan, reminding of us how there are no one-size fit-all solutions, that “best practices” have to be localized.

The main question we would like to pose is therefore:

  • Should governments step in to support higher education institutions which are struggling financially? Or should these institutions be allowed to “fail” as per market logic because they are “inefficient”? What about other considerations e.g. if the university is the only one serving a certain geographic location?

Several other interesting questions that arose after reading the article:

  • What are your opinions on government student loans? Is higher education a socially desirable public good and hence should, or to what extent, should the government subsidize higher education fees? Should higher education be free?
  • Universities often try to attract international students for various reasons, including to increase the university’s revenue. The article points out however, that countries where English is not the main mode of instruction face challenges in attracting English-speaking students. Should non-English speaking universities hence attempt to switch to English as the medium of English for all/certain courses because it is the (economically) “pragmatic” thing to do, or is that objectionable e.g. erosion of culture etc.?

 

The ratings are in! “The World’s Most International Universities 2017”

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Image Source – “The World’s Most International Universities 2017”
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/worlds-most-international-universities-2017

The ratings are in! Two South East Asian universities beat the US and UK in rankings for the world’s most international universities in 2017 indicating that utilizing English as a language of instruction and geographical location can provide Asian universities a competitive advantage. The question now is, will HEIs in other South East Asian countries utilize the “opportunity” produced by political turmoil in the US/UK to steer international students to South East Asia? If so, how?

You will find the full article at – https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/worlds-most-international-universities-2017#