Global update

Malaysian Business,  Apr 16, 2007  

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Australia's tertiary education under strain

THE vice-chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology, Ian Young, believes that a new approach is called for in how students go to university. He suggests a minimum score - an ENTER of 65 - and those who do not achieve it should do a HECS-supported associate degree at TAFE, as a pathway to university, reports The Age.

In a commentary piece, the newspaper says the idea has merit.

The vice-chancellor bases his proposal on the grounds that the university system has changed enormously in Australia since it was established. No longer is it only for the elite few. Also, Professor Young believes ENTER scores are not a reflection solely of academic ability but are influenced by socio-economic factors. Teenagers from wealthy suburbs are more likely to do well.

He also warns of a "funding treadmill" on which universities have found themselves. "Had it not been for the spectacularly successful full-fee paying international student market, Australian higher education would be in a diabolical position," he writes. One-quarter of students enrolled last year at universities were foreigners, and about 700 overseas-focused colleges have been established. The international student market is worth about $10 billion.

The report says Professor Young, in his paper Building Better Pathways to Higher Education has assessed the state of higher education and the consequences of leaving things as they are - not only for institutions, but for students and the country.

India mulls entity for education loans to poor

In a move aimed at helping students pursuing higher education, the Indian government is planning to set up a higher education finance corporation.

Business Standard reports the proposed corporation will provide scholarships and soft loans to students in close coordination with banks and the corporate sector.

Officials in the human resource development ministry said such a body was necessary for economically needy meritorious students who could not get education loans. In addition, education loans also have to be repaid within one year of graduating or six months after getting a job, whichever comes first.

He added the involvement of states was crucial as they were more involved with higher education than the central government. Earlier, a panel of the Central Advisory Board of Education that went into the issue of financing higher and technical education had pointed out that educational loan programmes could not be run solely on commercial lines.

UK academics, students writing essays for sale

There is a company in the UK, Oxbridge Essays, that claims to have over 600 academics and students writing essays for sale.

The Guardian, a British newspaper, reported recently that the company offers custom-made undergraduate and masters essays, and even PhD theses, for between STG80 and STG21,250. A 12,000-word essay would earn the writer STG600, for example.

According to the report, Oxbridge Essays says the work it provides is guaranteed to be the standard of a first or a 2:1.The company further claims that it "provides model examples of academic research that are intended to be used by clients as inspiration for their own work".

"Our services could only be construed as cheating if model work was handed in by clients as their own - something we strongly discourage,' its website says.

The report says the firm will not disclose how many students buy its essays. But it cannot be doing too badly. This year it had the resources to advertise three scholarships of up to STG5,000 to present or former postgraduate students prepared to write masters and PhD essays.

All of which, say Oxford and Cambridge, contribute to plagiarism at best and cheating at worst.

Oxford University says there were 16 cases of suspected plagiarism investigated between March 2006 and 2007. There were 11 in the same period the year before. Cambridge has investigated approximately 30 cases of suspected plagiarism by undergraduates and postgraduates this academic year. The year before, there were about five.

Bangladesh's education dilemma

The growing number of private universities or centres of higher education has been a positive development in the field of education in Bangladesh. But this development has again been marred by most of them failing to provide quality education, accroding to an editorial in The New Nation.

The commentary went on to say that an appropriate response to this situation cannot be closing down of educational institutions en masse but obliging them to submit to a course of steady improvement over a given period of time.

`Action may be taken against those institutions offering higher education but failing to clearly demonstrate improvements in respect of the quality of instructions at the end of a stipulated period of time.

`Training of teachers before they are permitted to engage in the profession and their reorientation throughout their professional life, remains a neglected area. But there should be a clear directive to train all teachers well ahead of their formal appointment and also at different stages of their careers. Services of government and private teachers' training institutes can be mobilised to help take up plans and implement those to train all teachers and improve the quality of teaching.'