Three Shanghai private colleges will be allowed to admit students without national college entrance exam score requirements this year, marking a major change in the city's decades-old higher education admission system.
Walk into any classroom at one of China's elite business schools and what you're likely to see isn't all that different from what you would find at Harvard, Wharton, or MIT's Sloan School. True, there's a preponderance of Asian faces and the occasional smattering of Mandarin. But the classes, course materials, subject matter, and even the teachers are virtually identical to their U.S. counterparts.
Shengda College in central China has a diverse curriculum, foreign faculty members to teach English and a manicured campus, where weeping willows shade a recreational lake.
Many Japanese private institutions, including half the junior colleges (which cater heavily to women), have lost money in the last two years. Causes include decreasing overall enrollments stemming from a falling birth rate, economic recession, and an increase in the number of new institutions. Some of the troubled private institutions have had to shut down. Others pursue policy to avoid this fate. Cost cutting falls heavily on staff. Measures to make institutions more attractive often center on attracting nontraditional students--businesspeople, homemakers, and retirees.
Japanese courts in major cities have issued rulings on prepaid tuition fees at private higher education institutions: to be returned or not. Referring to several elite and other private institutions, the Tokyo District Court sentenced them to return the prepaid tuition to students who did not enroll, though they had been admitted.
A Japanese university has filed for bankruptcy protection, citing a decline in its enrollment. The case, the first of its kind, could mark the start of a trend in Japan, where the birthrate -- and, along with it, the pool of college-age students -- has steadily shrunk for more than a decade.
The owner of a private Japanese university was arrested this month and charged with making off with millions of dollars in government subsidies while his institution ran up such huge debts that it was reportedly close to shutting down.
The operators of Kwansei Gakuin University and Seiwa College, both in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, plan to merge in spring 2008, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Wednesday.
A foundation hopes to open a university in North Korea in 2009. The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology University would be foreign funded, with one major contribution and other donations. The project has been delayed due to severe international tensions.
The growth of Singapore's private education may face interruption as complaints have increased over the past few years. For instance, a private higher education institution has been sued for misleading advertisement of a program and breaking promises to students, and even a widely-recognized private institute has been castigated. A fear is that improper behavior undermines Singapore's aspirations to be an international education hub.
South Korea's ministry of education has ordered three private institutions to turn over $15.3-million and dismiss 68 professors and officials due to bribery, and mishandling of funds. The ministry has withheld approval for one board of trustees and replaced another's.
The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development will launch a special task force to investigate admission irregularities at private universities in the wake of a bribery scandal involving Yonsei University.
Private schools still dominate university offers in Victoria despite the Gillard government's massive increase in places, with 85 per cent of applicants securing an offer compared with 71 per cent for government schools.
The American Association of University Professors has issued an open letter expressing "growing concern" about academic and personal freedoms at a controversial new liberal-arts campus in Singapore founded jointly by Yale University and the National University of Singapore. It is yet another demonstration of the unease among many academics with American universities' global ambitions.
Glion Institute of Higher Education, one of the world’s top three institutions of higher education for an international career in hospitality management, announced today that it is opening its first branch campus in London. The new campus expands the reach of Glion’s Swiss hospitality education programmes to students and industry leaders in the U.K. Glion is a member of Laureate International Universities, a global network of more than 60 accredited campus-based and online institutions of higher education serving more than 740,000 students in 29 countries.
The debate about academic freedom at the new Yale-National University of Singapore (NUS) liberal arts college has continued unabated, with Singaporean opposition politicians and American university professors adding their voices to the barrage of criticism of the venture.
Rice University’s first dual-degree doctoral program with the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), located in Brazil, was approved by the Faculty Senate on Nov. 14.
In late August, Duke University received approval from the Chinese government to start a branch campus in Kunshan, China. The controversial venture has caused a number of critics to question Duke’s rationale, as well as the rationale of other prominent American universities that have tried similar operations, with limited success.
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.
THE HIGHER Education Department will initiate strict action against the private colleges that do not adhere to the rules. Also the recognition of such colleges could be cancelled, the Principal Secretary of the department Dr Bhagirath Prasad has warned.
Students and teachers in private colleges and universities would soon be eligible for government scholarships and research grants. The University Grants Commission has finalized a proposal to provide financial help to self-financing colleges. “The commission had discussed the proposal but no final decision has been made. The issue would be taken up in the next commission meeting,” UGC secretary RK Chauhan told Hindustan Times.
The Government of Madhya Pradesh issued the following press release: The State Government has put a ban on use of the words 'Indian' and 'National' by the private colleges with their name running in the state
FOLLOWING UP its warning to private technical colleges regarding charging of higher fees, the Directorate of Technical Education on Wednesday cracked down on at least three private colleges in the City, checking their records, mainly vis-à-vis collection of fees.
NEARLY 1005 students, who have cleared B.Ed entrance examination conducted by the Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University (CSJMU), have become the victim of the ongoing tussle among the management of the various private colleges running the B.Ed courses. They could not get admission till date.
As many as 138 private institutes across the country, including 65 management and 15 engineering colleges, have sought permission to close from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). This is more than three times the number of institutes that had come up with the request last year.
The Bombay High Court, on Tuesday, asked the state government what it proposed to do to ensure seats in private medical colleges were not blocked in the name of students already admitted in government medical colleges. These seats ended up being filled through management quotas of the private colleges.
Students in self-financing universities and colleges may soon be eligible for a large number of University Grants Commission (UGC) fellowships and scholarships that at present are open only to students from institutions receiving government grants. The UGC has proposed allowing students from private universities benefits like the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and the Post Graduate Merit Scholarship, top government officials revealed.
Students may have to give two common entrance tests (CET) next year if private engineering colleges have their way. Members of the Maharashtra Association of Engineering Colleges (MAEC) have proposed conducting a separate entrance test apart from the MH-CET conducted by the state government. Association members met state higher education minister Rajesh Tope earlier this week to discuss the proposal.
Police officials in Rajasthan illegally sell unidentified corpses to private medical colleges for Rs. 5-7 lakh each, an RTI application by a businessman in Jaipur has revealed. Raj Kumar Soni’s son Rahul was allegedly murdered last year in Sriganganagar district, 500 km from Jaipur.
Nearly a fifth of Australian private colleges are "permanent residency factories", a new report in the education sector has revealed. The education sector, which is the country's third largest export industry, has been affected by a string of assaults on international students, particularly Indians. The claims of exploitation of overseas students have also not helped matters.
The government will allow the private sector to set up medical colleges in backward states, hilly areas and the northeast region, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Monday. "We will allow the private sector to set up medical colleges in backward states, hilly areas and the northeastern region," Azad said here at a healthcare meet organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), an industry lobby.
The government has drawn up a draft law giving itself the power to decide three-fourths of all admissions in private educational institutions, determine their fee structures, and impose government reservation policies on them. It will decide which professional college a student will study in, based on a list of multiple preferences. There will be no ‘domicile criterion’ in admissions.
Marking a major step in the educational sector, the Kerala assembly on Friday unanimously passed a legislation seeking to regulate admissions, fee structures and minority status of self-financing professional colleges. The Bill, piloted by Education Minister MA Baby, was passed by the House in an extended sitting that ended in the wee hours on Friday, with the Congress-led opposition UDF backing it after attacking the LDF government at various stages of the progress of the legislation.
Against the backdrop of a forceful appeal made by NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Maharashtra Government on Wednesday decided to restore reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs in vocational courses of private educational institutions in the state. NCP, a constituent of the DF government in the state along with Congress, expressed satisfaction with the decision after it was taken at a meeting of the state cabinet in Mumbai.
The Union HRD Ministry convened a meeting of all state ministers for higher education to discuss the enactment of a Central legislation to control self-financing institutes like private engineering colleges.
The human resource development (HRD) ministry may allow private players to set up universities instead of going through the "deemed to be university" route. The ministry will also push for firm regulations which would demand transparency and accountability of the players in the education sector.
A new university bill will turn higher education into a business enterprise, according to protesting students. In turn government claims that the bill is radically different from that originally composed three years ago and leaves no room for such fears. The bill deals with funding for only the public sector, whereas management provisions deal with both sectors.
A delegation of private sector universities in the NWFP has asked the governor to help extend the deadline set by the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Islamabad, to meet the minimum criteria for granting charter, say officials.
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