28 September 2009

Quality Assurance Makes Significant Headway

In its first report on progress in quality assurance in higher education, the European Commission has pointed to significant developments towards greater transparency and credibility over the past few years. Progress has not only been made in the way universities deal internally with quality assurance, but also on external evaluation of institutions and programmes. Many new national quality assurance agencies have been established and there is increased awareness of European standards and guidelines on quality assurance.
Ján Figel, the European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, said in a statement: "Quality assurance is vital for making European higher education attractive and trustworthy, in line with the objectives of the EU modernisation agenda for higher education and the Bologna Process. Globalisation, economic integration and increased academic and professional mobility are making mutual recognition and cross-border quality assurance increasingly important. As a consequence, higher education is becoming more transparent and credible for citizens, employers and students within and outside Europe.
More on the University World News site
Source: University World News, Issue No: 0094 27 September 2009

Improving Student Retention

As a key performance indicator in university quality assurance processes, the retention of students in their studies is an issue of concern worldwide. Implicit in the process of quality assurance is quality improvement. In an article titled "Improving student retention in higher education", published in the latest edition of Australian Universities' Review, authors Glenda Crosling, Margaret Heagney and Liz Thomas examine student retention from a teaching and learning perspective, in terms of approaches that have an impact on students' decisions to continue with or withdraw from their studies. Ways are discussed in which student engagement can be facilitated through teaching and learning programmes.
The authors point out, in conclusion, that the collection of statistical data on student retention is alone limited in its impact on educational quality improvement, which is implicit in quality assurance objectives. One way to improve quality in regard to student retention is to identify influences and causes of student retention and attrition. Engaging students in their studies has been identified as important in retaining students and stemming attrition. Institutions have shared responsibility to facilitate student engagement.
More on the University World News site
Source: University World News,Issue No: 0094 27 September 2009

23 September 2009

Indonesia: Top Academic Supported Militarism

David Jardine
An Australian academic’s book about Indonesia’s military reveals the alleged role of a leading academic and university rector in spinning history in favour of militarism and the dictatorship. Nugroho Notosusanto, one-time rector of the University of Indonesia and Minister of Education under Suharto, is the subject.
In 1945, when Indonesia proclaimed its independence from the Netherlands, it had no army-in-waiting, indeed no police, nothing at all in the way of a formal apparatus of repression or defence. The leadership was essentially anti-militarist and in the case of Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir, avowedly anti-fascist.
Twenty years later the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) submerged the nation's leftists, principally but not solely the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in a bloodbath that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
That bitter episode continues to be the target of official obfuscation and falsification. The shameful 2007 burnings of school history texts offering alternative versions of the events of 1965-66 demonstrate a continuum between democratic Indonesia and Suharto's New Order, at least where presentation of uncomfortable truths is concerned. The spectre of the New Order continues to hover above writers and historians.
More on the University World News site
Source: University World News, Issue No: 0093 20 September 2009

07 September 2009

Unexpected Philosophers

When you think of successful university careers, you might think of presidents, provosts and deans; when you think of the wisdom to be found on campus, you’re likely to think of professors sharing the fruits of their decades of research on chemistry, classics, or quantum mechanics, writes Serena Golden for Inside Higher Ed. You almost certainly won’t think of the folks cleaning the bathrooms, washing the floors, and changing the trash bags. Might you be missing something?
Patrick Shen thought so. While working on a previous film, Shen - who works at Transcendental Media, the independent film company he founded, as a director and producer of documentaries - interviewed Sheldon Solomon, a professor of psychology at Skidmore College. During one conversation, Solomon remarked - Shen told Inside Higher Ed - "that he is often mistaken for a homeless person because of the way he dresses and wears his hair long. That got me thinking about what wisdom we might find from the people on the fringes of society." So, along with his co-producer, Greg Bennick, Shen set out to make a film about the wisdom of people whom we rarely think of as wise. The two called colleges and universities across the United States to ask if they could interview the janitors.
Full report on the Inside Higher Ed site
Source: University World News, Issue No: 0091 06 September 2009

Study of Humanities Neglected in Universities

Higher education institutions in the United Arab Emirates say they want to correct an “imbalance” in the types of courses students are being offered and make more humanities subjects available, write Daniel Bardsley and Hassan Hassan in The National. There should be more science and liberal arts courses, officials said, as figures showed that more than 60% of programmes at universities were in business, information technology and engineering.
A study by the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR) found that business administration courses made up 25% of the total offered by universities. Information technology and computer engineering courses constituted 19%, while engineering accounted for 18%. In all, 276 university courses were analysed.
The study excluded the Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi and the forthcoming New York University Abu Dhabi, each of which has a humanities focus. It also did not include universities in free zones such as Dubai International Academic City or Ras al Khaimah Free Trade Zone.
More on the The National site
Source: University World News, Issue No: 0091 06 September 2009

02 September 2009

Indonesia: Private Universities Under Threat

David Jardine
Some 700 private universities in Indonesia have been put on notice by the Ministry of National Education that their accreditation will be withdrawn if they do not quickly comply with regulations. The universities are under instructions to re-register with the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.
Many of Indonesia's 2,700 private universities are run by foundations known as yayasan, which are essentially charities. Yayasan have a rather controversial history especially as the late dictator Suharto used a network of more than 100 of them to hide revenues and to move them around.
Weak law enforcement has made it difficult to police such foundations. The National Education Ministry, however, gave the foundation-run higher education institutes three years up to December 2008 to complete the re-registration process that would bring them under proper supervision but the 700 are still apparently dragging their feet.
Universities are being given the option of changing their status by severing ties with the foundations that run them by becoming managed educational agencies (BHPP) or public educational agencies (BHPM). This would bring them into line with the 2009 Law on Autonomy for Educational Institutions passed last year by the House of Representatives.
More on the University World News site
Source: University World News,Issue No: 0090 30 August 2009