The Afghan government is actively planning for the country's first private university. The American University of Afghanistan is to be American-style, with English-language instruction and mainly American professors. It is to open as an undergraduate institution, with graduate programs in the future. The Afghan Ministry of Higher Education has contracted an American organization for expertise on foreign institution building and is obtaining U.S. government funds. There will be a 10-month feasibility study from this summer, with the university slated to open shortly thereafter.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has partnered with the Afghan Government and other private donors to establish the private American University of Afghanistan set to open in 2006. Targeting 1,100 undergraduates from Afghanistan and neighboring countries, the university will offer programs in management, liberal arts, and communications, all taught in English. Additionally, President Karzai has emphasized that educational development is crucial to national development.
The present academic year in India has experienced chaos following fee hikes, public demonstrations and staying of admissions in private medical colleges. Following the Supreme Court judgment in October 2002, some private medical colleges in Mumbai had raised annual fees from about $2,500 to $7,500. In its judgement, the court had allowed financially independent private sector to run professional colleges, a right granted earlier only to minorities based upon religion or language.
Sylvan Learning Systems is extending its reach in international higher education to India. The company announced last month that it had put a down payment on a 250-acre site near Hyderabad, in south-central India, where it hopes to develop a university that would eventually enroll about 10,000 students in career-oriented programs.
MIT received a pledge for $350 million yesterday to create a new institute on brain research, the largest single gift to a university ever. The institute will focus on the way humans learn and communicate.
India's Supreme Court has ordered each state to review private institutions' tuition to forbid "profiteering." The Court's ruling mainly results from the for-profit orientation of many Indian private institutions-and their questionable quality. The fast private growth of Indian higher education due to the increasing demand for access has resulted in the sale of seats in many private institutions.
In a judgment that could limit access to professional education, India's Supreme Court ruled last month that colleges that do not receive government aid are not required to use state admission quotas for students from minority groups and lower castes.
A hectic lobbying is on at the state and national level by the managements of the 27 private medical colleges in the state to stall the proposal for online counselling for management quota seats this year. College managements say that Rs 700-800 crore is riding on these seats even as state health officials are busy putting together possible solutions to deal with the medical admission chaos this year.
In a setback to the Centre's proposed legislation for regulating admissions to and fee structures in private professional educational institutions, which also provides for reservation, a seven-judge Bench of the Supreme Court on Friday ruled out quotas in them.
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