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    DAYS could be numbered for independent private colleges playing hide-and-seek with government with regards to the implementation of the new curriculum for primary and secondary education is concerned. Many of the country's private colleges are either resisting or finding it difficult to implement the syllabi, with some of them having completely abandoned the local examination body -- the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council -- in favour of Cambridge International Examinations. Officials from independent colleges surveyed by the Financial Gazette recently are of the view that implementing the new curriculum would be costly for their institutions because it requires additional staff to cover the new subjects that are part of the new syllabi. It would also entail that their teaching staff go through re-training while relevant learning material would have to be acquired. But Primary and Secondary Education Deputy Minister, Paul Mavhima, said government would clampdown on all institutions defying its directives. He outlined what he called two issues characterising independent colleges' terrain. "Firstly, there are some institutions in this sector that are operating without any form of registration and many of these institutions have approached us and pleaded for the formalisation grace period to be extended. "Secondly, there are some registered independent colleges that, for one reason or the other, are not implementing the new curriculum, but recruiting trained teachers. "Now all the institutions choosing to operate without registration risk facing closure, if they do not put their paperwork in order," said Mavhima. Christian College of Southern Africa principal, Tichaona Zinhumwe, said the way the new curriculum was structured requires them to change the way they have been enrolling students. "This poses challenges because we do not have adequate facilities to accommodate these students. Some of the subjects require space and most independent colleges are located in city centres so it will be difficult to
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    WHEELING – Who and what is Nova Southeastern University, and where can it be found on a map of the United States? Those were the popular questions when it was announced last week that highly successful West Liberty men’s basketball coach Jim Crutchfield was leaving the hilltop and making NSU his destination. For starters, Nova Southeastern is not in any way affiliated with Villanova University. Secondly, you won’t find any hills or snow on campus, but you are likely to encounter palm trees and bikinis. Located in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Nova Southeastern’s main campus is minutes away from Fort Lauderdale’s beach, South Beach, Los Olas night life and the Everglades. It’s home to a diverse student enrollment of 25,000, with 1,200 being international students that come from 116 countries on five continents. Currently NSU, a private non-profit university, consists of 18 colleges and schools offering more than 175 programs of study with more than 250 majors. The school, which has an annual tuition cost of $27,660, has produced more than 170,000 alumni. The university was founded in 1964 as the Nova University of Advanced Technology on a former Naval Outlying Landing Field built during World War II. In 1994 the school merged with Southeastern University of the Health and Sciences and assumed its current name. Its endowment is listed as $102.7 million. Nova Southeastern is classified as a Doctoral/Research University Carnegie Foundation and was ranked by the Washington Monthly as the 259th-best national university. In 2000 and again in 2014, Nova was ranked third for the highest debt burden amongst its students. In 2014, NSU carried the highest debt load compared to all other students at non-profit universities. “You have to have a 3.0 grade-point average just to get in,” Crutchfield said. “Under grad is about 9,000 students and there are 16,000 in the various graduate programs — they pretty much have one for anything you want to do.” NSU boasts a vibrant campus life and only “highly credentialed” professors teac
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    Hungarian leaders continued their assault on civil society this week with philanthropist George Soros still squarely in their sights. Legislation proposed by the right-wing Fidsez government as part of their self-proclaimed “spring offensive” targets foreign educational institutions, like the Soros-funded Central European University, with tighter regulations. With further crackdowns planned on NGOs, will the European Union step in? Both Soros and U.S. leaders expressed outrage over the new proposal, although the Hungarian-born billionaire is a frequent punching bag of America’s conservative leaders and the current administration. “The United States is very concerned about the legislation proposed by the Hungarian government yesterday that would severely impact the operations of the Central European University in Budapest,” U.S. Charge d’Affaires in Hungary David Kostelancik said in a statement to Bloomberg. The U.S. “opposes any effort to compromise the operations or independence of the University,” he said. As NPQ reported, the U.S. commitment to protecting human rights at home and abroad was recently called into question when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson downplayed the release of the annual Human Rights Report. Soros is also a controversial figure abroad, where he has offices of his Open Society Foundations running in 37 countries. In the European Union, he has been particularly vocal about member states doing their part to relieve the international refugee crisis, which is at odds with the anti-refugee policies of Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Orbán, who has vowed to purse an “illiberal democracy” modeled on those in Russia and Turkey, is stepping up a campaign to sideline opposition voices, Bloomberg reported. One of Europe’s strongest advocates of U.S. President Donald Trump, the former anti-communist student leader has overseen the most extensive centralization of power in Hungary since the fall of the Iron Curtain after returning to office in 2010. Soros founded Central European Univer
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    It might just be career government lawyers doing their jobs, and doing them well, until the Trump Administration can catch up and work its malevolence, but in court papers filed today, the Trump Justice Department defended the Obama Administration’s gainful employment rule, a measure aimed at curbing predatory abuses by for-profit colleges. The rule penalizes expensive career college programs that, year after year, leave graduates with debts that, based on their earnings, they cannot afford to repay. “The public interest is served by allowing the Department to go forward with implementing the GE regulations,” Justice Department lawyers wrote on behalf of their client, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who is being sued by an association of cosmetology schools. The association’s somewhat risque argument is that many hairdressers and other beauty professionals do not report all their tip income to the IRS, and thus their graduates actually are doing better than the gainful employment calculations give them credit for. Revised under pressure from industry lobbyists, the Obama Administration’s rule is not very strong, but it does endanger some of the worst-of-the-worst college programs. The operators of those programs, who have been raking in billions in taxpayer money, want to make sure they can still act with impunity, even though their abuses have ruined the lives of countless veterans, single moms, and other students. There are good cosmetology schools, as well as other types of career schools. The gainful employment rule aims to channel resources and students to those quality, affordable schools, and away from the kind of for-profit colleges that law enforcement agencies are investigating or prosecuting for fraud. But given: that Donald Trump was previously the proprietor of his own predatory for-profit real estate “university”; that Trump crony Newt Gingrich and congressional Republicans have aggressively advocated for the for-profit college industry; that DeVos has been invested in for-profit education
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    All three of England’s for-profit universities owned in Netherlands Calls have been made for greater scrutiny of the ownership of for-profit higher education providers after it emerged that BPP University is owned in the Netherlands by its US parent. The disclosure means that all three of England’s for-profit universities are owned in the Netherlands, which is known for its attractive corporate tax regime. However, Apollo Education Group, which has owned BPP since 2010 and was recently bought by two US private equity firms, said it did not gain any tax advantage from Dutch ownership of the institution. BPP has benefited from £26.6 million in tuition fee payments via the public Student Loans Company over five years since 2011, according to SLC figures. Companies House documents show that BPP University is owned by BPP Holdings, which is in turn owned by Apollo UK Acquisition Company Limited, which is itself owned by Coöperatieve Apollo Global Netherlands UA (UA is the abbreviation for the Dutch-language term for “excluded liability”). England’s two other for-profit universities, the University of Law and Arden University, are both owned by Global University Systems, a company whose leadership is Russian and which is registered in the Netherlands as a “BV”, the Dutch equivalent of a private limited liability company. The government’s Higher Education and Research Bill, currently making its way through Parliament, aims to bring in more private and for-profit providers to compete with universities. Times Higher Education asked Apollo why BPP is ultimately owned in the Netherlands, whether or not Netherlands ownership conferred any tax advantages for Apollo, and whether the location of ownership is likely to change under the new owners of Apollo. A spokesman for Apollo Global, the group’s subsidiary for its non-US operations, said: “Apollo Global’s Dutch structure was put into place in 2011 in conjunction with the development of a new global learning platform. We do not gain any tax advantages related to the s
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    Both opponents and proponents of SAITM have been coming up with their vigorous arguments. This subject has been debated by politicians, academics and public in many forums. People of different political parties have been demonstrating for and against SAITM. Both arguments have some valid points but which argument over weights today in this modern world? Which argument is most viable and most practical one today in this modern globalized and competing world of brain powers and human resources. I will share my thought on this issue objectively without any bias. Opponents argue that they want to secure free education, they want to maintain the quality of medical education in Sri Lanka, they want to protect the rights of patients in Sri Lanka and they want to protect and preserve the integrity of medical profession. They come up with many good and valid points. I fully agree with them in some of their points. To privatise medical education in a country like Sri Lanka would be dangerous. It has been claimed in India you can buy any degree certificates even MBBS certificates with bribes. We do not want to see that in Sri Lanka. Please do not tell me that we do not have crooks in Higher education. Some crooks may try to make money out of this private medical colleges. With political influences in Sri Lanka, not only medical degrees you could buy PhDs in Sri Lanka. We have seen this in Sri Lanka in recent past. The quality and integrity of university education is fading away in Sri Lanka slowly and gradually. Sometime less qualified people are recruited into university post with political influence. Recent events in Jaffna University is a good example for this political influence. Politicians have been influencing in public institutions, schools, universities, public offices and in many government departments in Sri Lanka. This is not a secret in Sri Lanka and everyone knows this. Except JVP all political parties will use their political influence in these public affairs. I see some valid points in these arguments. No
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    March 19, 2017 - Higher Education Relevance Quality Agency (HERQA) is discussing with private higher education institutions to introduce a new directive which will regulate them and possibly penalize them in case of breaches, according to the Reporter. The directive, which was prepared by the Agency last year, was tabled to stakeholders including owners, presidents and associations of private higher education institutions for a final discussion. The discussion was meant to receive comments regarding the directive. “Once we receive comments from the interested parties we will take them into consideration,” Tarekgne Geressu, communication head of the Agency told The Reporter. The draft directive gives the Agency the power to penalize institutions that don't follow regulations under civil and criminal law. “The latest one is more detailed and specific than the zero draft,” Solomon Tadesse,” head of legal department at the Agency, said. In addition, we added a list of principles along with the misconducts and penalties, he said. It categorizes the misconducts along with their corresponding penalties. In this respect it listed 15 misconducts and their corresponding penalties. The penalty varies from issuing a warning letter to cancellation of licenses. Irregularities include opening branches and offering different programs without the permission of the Agency, registering students who do not fulfill the academic requirement and receiving students beyond the permitted enrollment by the Agency. The Agency, which has its offices only in Addis Ababa, oversees around 111 colleges, universities, university-colleges and institutes scattered across the country
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    Punjab Higher Education Minister Syed Raza Ali Gillani has said the role of private sector in promotion of education is equally important. It has been given conducive atmosphere to grow and extend learning opportunities to students. According to a handout, the minister was addressing an intermediate students’ science exhibition of a Gulberg-based private college here on Thursday. Raza Gillani commended the scientific understanding of the students, which they exhibited in the shape of models showing solution to different problems. In his address, he vowed that improving standard of higher education was the key concern of the government; and said that both public and private sectors could improve access to education of students. He reiterated that the Punjab government was committed to improve the standard of higher education, as it was the backbone of the economy, and produced best professionals for different fields. “We live in a knowledge-based society which is driven by information technology,” he added. Punjab Schools Education Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmed said revolutionary steps had been taken for improving the overall standard of schools education in the Punjab. “No child would be left outside schools as the government is fully committed to ensure hundred percent enrolment in schools by 2018,” he added. Both the ministers also inspected the science exhibition and lauded the students for their scientific intellect.
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    Generally, prestigious private universities with hundreds of students don't get shut down over fairly minor, six-month-old technical issues that have since been resolved. But that is precisely the predicament facing the two-decade-old European University at St. Petersburg, a bastion of Western liberal arts, which has been ordered closed by a district court after a furious conservative assault against it. What appears to be on full display is a hallmark of the Vladimir Putin-era: a new brand of domestic "lawfare," in which state-run courts enforce political conformity through legal pretexts. Unlike blatant Soviet-style repression, outcomes are shaped through complicated, often years-long court battles that seem to lead inexorably to the politically desired verdict. One illustrative recent example is a local court's upholding of an embezzlement conviction against opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which has the collateral effect of barring him from running in presidential elections that are about a year away. Kremlin supporters will denounce such a description as an example of Western arrogance, aimed at defaming Russian courts and rule of law. It's a debate that cannot be easily settled. 'Fake studies'? But consider the case of the European University, a private post-graduate school that currently has about 260 students – many of them from abroad – and whose main campus occupies the magnificent Small Marble Palace in St. Petersburg's historic heart. The school was founded in a different political era, in 1994, with support from the city's then-mayor, reformist Anatoly Sobchak, and substantial donations from a range of international organizations, including the Soros, MacArthur, and Spencer foundations. It's one of the few private universities in Russia that is fully licensed to issue graduate degrees by the Ministry of Education, and has been consistently rated among the top universities in Russia. The school's curriculum is heavy on political science, sociology, history, and economics. Many classes are tau
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    For Democrats, the one great policy legacy of 2016 was the party’s embrace of free tuition for public colleges and universities. After Bernie Sanders made it a signature policy proposal and proved its political potency (especially with millennials), Hillary Clinton adapted and adopted it when she won the nomination. Over the course of the campaign, the idea evolved from a progressive pipe dream into a concept with massive momentum. This thing was going to happen! But when Donald Trump won and Republicans took control of Congress, a federal free-tuition program became a pipe dream again. The only chance for free college was to start at the state level—in one of the few remaining blue states—and create a model that could spread nationally. Given the popularity of the idea, it’s not surprising that two ambitious Democratic governors–both presidential prospects for 2020—have taken up the call. Both New York’s Andrew Cuomo and Rhode Island’s Gina Raimondo are vying to be the governor who made free college happen—and both their plans are running into resistance from their own party’s lawmakers. Some of the controversy was to be expected: It’s no surprise that fiscal conservatives think it’s another costly social program with uncertain returns. Other legislators and educators worry about how it will affect enrollment at state schools. But for liberals, the legislative battles have exposed a series of tricky policy trade-offs that cut to the heart of a larger national debate: What kind of “progress” should Democrats be fighting for? Should a new social program benefit everyone equally, like Social Security, or help low-income families the most? And how valuable is tuition relief, really, if the state doesn’t help students with other college expenses, like room and board and books? The surface simplicity of the whole idea is one of its great calling cards: Free college. How complicated could that be? The debates in New York and Rhode Island have sometimes been acrimonious and divisive. But that’s far from a bad thing:
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    "For-profit colleges have faced federal and state investigations in recent years for their aggressive recruiting tactics –– accusations that come as no surprise to author Tressie McMillan Cottom," NPR reports. "Cottom worked as an enrollment officer at two different for-profit colleges, but quit because she felt uncomfortable selling students an education they couldn't afford. Her new book, Lower Ed, argues that for-profit colleges exploit racial, gender and economic inequality. Cottom tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that for-profit institutions tend to focus their recruiting on students who qualify for the maximum amount of student aid. 'That happens to be the poorest among us,' she says. 'And because of how our society is set up, the poorest among us tend to be women and people of color.' Though for-profit colleges hold out the promise of a better future, Cottom notes that the credentials they offer tend to be 30 to 40 percent more expensive than the same credentials from a nonprofit public institution. What's more, she says, students at for-profit institutions often drop out before completing their degree, which means many students are left mired in debt and with credits that are not easily transferable. 'The system that we've come to rely on to increase access to higher education to the most vulnerable among us really only compounds their poverty and their risk factors,' Cottom says. 'That's the exact opposite of what higher education is supposed to do.'" NASFAA's "Headlines" section highlights media coverage of financial aid to help members stay up to date with the latest news. Inclusion in Today's News does not imply endorsement of the material or guarantee the accuracy of information presented.
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    AGRA: Acting on a directive from chief minister Yogi Adityanath to curb the menace of mass cheating in the ongoing UP Board examinations, a team of invigilators led by Agra University vice-chancellor conducted a surprise raid at a private college and caught the owner red-handed while assisting students in copying. The raid was conducted on Wednesday evening by a four-member team at Manish Sharma College on Deori road under Sadar police jurisdiction. The private college is owned by Prashant Sharma. Talking to TOI, professor Luvkush Mishra, a team member, said, "It was astonishing to see that the owner of the college was acting as the center superintendent for examinations in the college. There was no principal or invigilators in the college." According to university norms, only principal, center superintendent and invigilators are allowed during exam hours. "Acting as the centre superintendent, Prashant was signing and collecting the answer-sheets that were mostly blank. After examination hours, he gave those blank answer sheets to the boys he had hired and dictated answers to them," said professor Mishra. The team found several bundles of answer sheets at Prashant's office that were not sealed after the exams. Arvind Dixit, VC of Agra University, said, "After conducting the exam, the answer sheets must be sealed within half-an-hour in the presence of invigilators and centre superintendent. However, we found several bundles that were not sealed." The team members said that after the boys had filled up the sheets, Prashant placed it between the bundles and sent it to the respective centres. On Wednesday , the team seized all the answer sheets and urged the regional higher education officer to take strict action against the accused. In order to conduct the remaining examinations, the VC has allotted four invigilators and a center superintendent from Agra University to Manish Sharma College. According to an Agra University official, CM Aditya Nath Yogi had called a high-level meeting of university VCs on Tuesday an
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    Taiwan's declining birth rate will take a toll on college enrollment, as the Ministry of Education (MOE) predicted Wednesday that the number of students entering university and other higher education institutes would drop close to 40 percent by 2028. At the Legislature's Education and Culture Committee, Deputy Minister of Education Yao Leehter (姚立德) reported that the number of incoming university bachelor freshmen and vocational colleges would drop by 40 percent to 723,000 in 2028 — 413,000 fewer than enrollment rates in 2013. Drops in enrollment are predicted to continue the trend of institutional belt-tightening, including cuts in instructor hiring, school closures and mergers. School lands are likely to be left unused, causing a waste of higher education resources, Yao said, warning that universities and colleges should "begin thinking about an exit plan." As higher education has become more accessible, the number of well-educated unemployed has increased, with many businesses claiming today's graduates do not fit the requirements of a modern workplace. Update Education for Industry The MOE is set to launch a project assisting vocational high school students in entering the job market immediately after graduation, in order to close the gap between education and industry. A flexible department-altering system would be established, Yao said, to allow university departments to change their teaching materials and content to catch up with the latest business trends. The Democratic Progressive Party's Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) questioned the fact that government funds for private universities differ greatly from those for public universities. She said that a regular public university receives three times the funding of a private university, while a regular public school student gets 2.2 times that a private school student gets. "The difference in resources at school impacts students' opportunities in their careers," Su said. In response, Yao said the ministry has increased private universities' funding to NT$8
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    PATNA: The state assembly on Wednesday passed three Bills, including the Bihar Private Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2017 that envisages to relax the rules for opening a private university. While the varsity Bill was passed unanimously, the two other Bills were passed by voice vote. One of them pertained to the repeal of the existing Bihar Krishak evam Gramin Kshetra Vikas Agency Act to facilitate the merger of the four command area development agencies of the Sone, Gandak, Kosi and Kiul-Badua river basins. The other Bill was an amendment Bill related to the inclusion of the provision for payment of pension to MLAs and MLCs in the Act (2006) governing the payment of salaries and allowances to them. The Accountant General had objected to the pension to the lawmakers as it was not provided for in the pay Act, said parliamentary affairs minister Shrawan Kumar. As for the varsity Bill, education minister Ashok Choudhary said the Act had been framed in 2013 to allow a new private university to run from its premises having an area of 10,000 square metres in a building for two years before shifting to the place designated in the project report. As per the amendment, such a university can be run from the premises of even 5,000 square metres for four years before shifting to the designated place, Choudhary said.
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    The right-wing government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is taking steps that could cause a popular American university in Budapest to close. Under a bill submitted to the Hungarian Parliament late Tuesday, non-EU universities issuing diplomas in Hungary would be required to have a campus in their home country. Central European University — which was founded in 1991 by liberal philanthropist and investor George Soros and is widely considered to be the top private university in Hungary — does not have a campus in the United States, even though it is registered in New York state. Students from scores of countries are enrolled in the university's English-language, graduate and post-graduate programs. Orban and the Hungarian-born Soros have a strained relationship, even though the prime minister received a scholarship from the Soros foundation that allowed him to study briefly at Oxford. Hungarian officials say the legislation doesn't have anything to do with Soros or CEU, even though the new requirement doesn't affect Hungary's 27 other non-EU universities, which all have campuses abroad. They say the changes are needed because foreign-funded universities are operating outside the law. But many Hungarians, and certainly Orban's critics in and outside of the country, believe the legislation is a clear attempt to shut down CEU. If the legislation passes, the law would take effect in September and CEU would have to open a campus in the United States by Feb. 15, 2018, if it wants to stay open. That is something the university says "would have no educational benefit and would incur needless financial and human resource costs." The bill "is a threat to our continued existence in Hungary," Michael Ignatieff, CEU's president and rector, told reporters at a news conference. He vowed to fight back, adding: "This university is not going to close under any circumstance and we won't be pushed around." Ignatieff met with Hungary's education minister Wednesday night in Budapest to try to resolve the conflict, CEU
    6 years ago by @prophe
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    The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matter to you in your college or grad school search. Most medical school graduates leave school with a significant amount of student debt, and their debt burden tends to be higher if they attended private medical schools. But private medical schools vary widely in price. Among ranked private schools in the 2018 Best Medical Schools research and primary care rankings, the cost of tuition and fees for the 2016-2017 school year ranges from $32,663 per year at Baylor College of Medicine to $63,890 per year at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. At the 10 least expensive ranked private medical schools, tuition and fees for the 2016-2017 school year were slightly more than $43,700 on average compared with the typical price at a private medical school, which was nearly $53,900 annually. Six of these 10 schools were ranked in the bottom one-fourth in the medical school rankings, and are labeled Rank Not Published. Below is a list of the 10 ranked private medical schools with the lowest tuition and fees in 2016. Two of these schools offer discounts to in-state residents – the Baylor College of Medicine and the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami. The prices given for the schools in this article are the full-freight rates paid by out-of-state students. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report. U.S. News surveyed 170 medical schools for our 2016 survey of research and primary care programs. Schools self-reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among
    6 years ago by @prophe
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