Salaries and Contracts : International Comparisons 2 Academic Salaries and Contracts : What Do We Know ?

The journal is a reflection of the Center’s mission to encourage an international perspective that will contribute to enlightened policy and practice. Through International Higher Education, a network of distinguished international scholars offers commentary and current information on key issues that shape higher education worldwide. IHE is published in English, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish. Links to all editions can be found at www.bc.edu/cihe. Number 68: Summer 2012


Salaries and Contracts
Academic Salaries and Contracts: What Do We Know?Philip G. Altbach and Iván F. Pacheco Philip G. Altbach is Monan University Professor and director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.E-mail: altbach@bc.edu.Iván F. Pacheco is research assistant at the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.E-mail: pacheciv@ bc.edu.D ata in this article are from Paying the Professoriate: A Global Comparison of Compensation and Contracts, edited by Philip G. Altbach, Liz Reisberg, Maria Yudkevich, Gregory Androushchak, and Iván F. Pacheco (New York: Routlege, 2012).Additional data can be found on the project Web site: http://acarem.hse.ru.This research resulted from a collaboration between the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College and the Laboratory of Institutional Analysis at the National Research University-Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
Salaries and the terms of faculty appointments and promotion are central to the well-being of the academic profession and its contributions to the university.If salaries are inadequate, the "best and brightest" will not be attracted to academe, and those who do teach will be obliged to moonlight, diverting their attention and dedication from their academic work.Additionally, without appropriate contracts and appointments, there is a limited guarantee of academic freedom or expectation of either a stable or satisfying career.Furthermore, in a globalized world, salaries in one country affect academe elsewhere, as professors are tempted to move where remuneration and working conditions are best.
Yet, only limited research is available about these issues, within a specific country or comparatively.Comparative studies on academics in many countries are complex, as data are often difficult to obtain; and exchange rates and the standard of living vary across countries.The research provided data using purchasing power parity, which permits more realistic salary comparisons.The project reveals key trends in 28 diverse countries on all continents.

Salaries and Remuneration
This research, not surprisingly, found significant variations in academic salaries worldwide.As a general rule, salaries were best in wealthier countries, although there are significant variations among them, with the English-speaking academic systems generally paying more than those in continental Europe.Russia and the former Soviet countries pay quite low salaries, even when their economies are relatively prosperous.There were a few surprises.India ranks comparatively high in salaries.China, on the other hand, has invested heavily in its higher education system, particularly in its research universities; yet, average academic salaries rank at the bottom.
It was also learned that, in many countries, salary alone does not convey a complete picture of compensation.Academics also depend on other payments and subsidies, from their universities, and other sources-to make up the total remuneration package.Chinese universities, for example, provide a complex set of fringe benefits and extra payments to their academic staff for publishing articles, evaluating extra examinations, and for other campus work.In North America and western Europe, salaries are the main academic income-while elsewhere this does not seem to be the case.
In many countries, salaries are too low to support a middle-class lifestyle locally, and other income is needed.In many of these places, moonlighting is common.Many academics teach at more than one institution.Indeed, the burgeoning private higher education sector in many countries depends on professors from the public universities to teach most classes.

Contracts
The terms and conditions of academic appointments and subsequent opportunities for advancement available to the academic profession are also of central importance.Among the group of 28 countries, few offer formal tenure to the academic profession, thus perhaps weakening guarantees of academic freedom and providing less job security.Tenure arrangements, awarded to academics after a careful evaluation of performance, seem largely limited to the United States, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and South Africa in the study.In one country, Saudi Arabia, local academic staff receive permanent appointments, at the time of hiring.Some continental European countries provide civil service status to academics in the public universities, and this also provides significant job security.In fact, in most countries, few are fired and few are seriously evaluated.
Comparative studies on academics in many countries are complex, as data are often difficult to obtain; and exchange rates and the standard of living vary across countries.Salaries and Contracts There is a kind of de facto tenure that provides long-term employment for most, without either a guarantee or any means of careful evaluation.
A number of important variations exist in requirements to enter the profession or (when available) to qualify for a tenured-like position.In many countries, a doctoral degree is requisite to become a university professor.In certain European countries (Czech Republic, France, Germany, and Russia) a habilitation-similar to a doctoral dissertation-is needed, in addition to the doctoral degree, to achieve the rank of professor.In other countries, a simple bachelor's degree is sufficient to be hired as a university teacher.In countries where a PhD is not required, there is a trend to demand higher qualifications; and the master's degree is becoming the minimum requirement, even if it is not mandatory by law.

International Mobility
Among the countries that pay the best salaries, some benefit based on an inflow of academics from less-wealthy countries.Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, and the United States benefit the most from the migration of academic talent.In contrast, many of the countries paying the lowest salaries are considered "sender" countries and some (Armenia, Ethiopia, Israel, and Nigeria) have implemented programs, in which better salaries and working conditions are part of the strategy to attract or retain national and international scholars.In their quest to build world-class education systems, China and Saudi Arabia are aggressively pursuing international faculty, mostly from English-speaking countries, as well as their own expatriates.In the Chinese case, that process has resulted in a big gap between the salary of local professors and international/repatriated ones.Finally, some countries are both "senders" and "receivers."For example, South Africa attracts professors from other African nations, but at the same time it frequently suffers brain drain to English-speaking countries-such as, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States.

Conclusion
This research shows a range of realities for the academic profession.Some countries offer reasonable salaries and secure and transparent career structures for academics.The English-speaking countries included in this research-Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, to some extent South Africa, and the United States-fall into this category.Western European countries that offer civil service status to academics typically provide decent working conditions and compensation.But even in these nations, the professoriate is inadequately compensated when compared to other highly educated professionals.For the rest, and this includes Russia and the former Soviet Union, China, Latin America (except Brazil), and Nigeria, salaries are low and contracts often lack transparency.India offers reasonably good salaries.
A global comparison presents an array of realitiesfew of them extraordinarily attractive-for the professoriate.This situation, at least for the 28 countries examined in this research, is certainly problematical for countries at the center of the global knowledge economy.For academics in those countries with quite low salaries-such as, China, Russia, Armenia, or Ethiopia-the academic profession faces a crisis.In general, it seems like professors are not considered the elite in the knowledge economy.Rather, they tend to be seen as a part of the skilled labor force that such economies require.

Gregory Androushchak and Maria Yudkevich
Gregory Androushchak is adviser to the rector, National Research University-Higher School of Economics.E-mail: gandroushchak@gmail. com.Maria Yudkevich is vice-rector, National Research University-Higher School of Economics.E-mail: yudkevich@hse.ru.
F or decades, universities in Soviet countries were gov- erned, evaluated, and financed according to the same principles.The current system is not like this former one.However, faculty contracts-a core element in any university-still participate much in common.While this article is based on detailed data on the academic profession in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Russia, the described trends are, to some extent, common for all post-Soviet countries.

What Faculty Are Supposed to Provide
Faculty contracts in post-Soviet countries reflect the fact that many universities form primarily educational entities, built around teaching and learning processes.So, faculty contracts more or less explicitly describe teaching loads and obligations, and most monitoring and reporting activities are concentrated around contractual arrangements.At the same time, the professoriate in general has little incentives and opportunities to be actively involved in research: research is poorly rewarded and teaching loads are heavy.Teaching is far more relevant as a source of income for fac-Salaries and Contracts ulty, compared to other countries.At the same time, faculty in many of these countries (e.g., Russia and Armenia) do not participate in consulting but rather engage in nonacademic jobs.
How Are Faculty Paid?
Compared to professionals outside universities, university teachers are relatively poorly paid.That concerns both top rank (such as associate professor or full professor) and entry rank (assistants or lecturer).Actually, it is a common pattern in all developed countries that academic people obtain less money and enjoy nonmonetary benefits.However, even taking that into account, faculty's salaries in former Soviet countries are significantly lower than those in other countries.At least in part, these conditions are based on the fact that, in general, these countries are relatively poor, compared to western European countries, the United States, Canada, or Australia.This explanation, however, does not reveal why these salaries are two times lower, even in relation to gross domestic product per capita.By the way, in Nigeria, Ethiopia, or India where GDP per capita is also low, relative earnings of university professors are quite huge, comparing to the rest of the population.

Sources of Income
Since salaries are low and insufficient for normal standards of life, moonlighting is quite common.Many teachers are engaged in teaching at several universities (including forprofit programs), offering private lessons or take teaching loads based on the main contract within the same university.Many teachers use a university reputation of their main employer (a position that does not pay too much money, as a salary) to gain a good per hour contract at a less-reputable, for-profit university, which provided good money.
Many post-Soviet countries gave up university-specific entry exams and substituted that with government-unified examination systems, which have not continued in a widespread form.However, private tutors are still in great demand, since they now help to prepare for these unified tests; and many applicants from all income groups prefer to use preparatory lessons, to increase chances for better enrollment.

Fringe Benefits: Remuneration Beyond Salary
While in many aspects academic contracts in post-Soviet countries differ from those in developed countries, fringe benefits in the university sector of these countries are more or less the same as in the rest of the world.Faculty enjoy longer vacations-the only time to engage in research for those who are overloaded with teaching but do not give up research ambitions-and retirement funds.All other potential benefits, such as housing or loans, are in general not available.In the Soviet period, university teachers had access to many nonmonetary benefits, which were not feasible for people in industries, and also had a higher social status than those who worked in enterprises.So, the academic profession at those times attracted the brightest graduates and was able to provide them with rather good remuneration, high social status, and fringe benefits-as well as, clear career perspectives.Today, the current conditions offered to university professionals, especially young ones, cause a huge adverse selection effect: when the best potential researchers choose nonacademic work or leave country to work in universities around the world.Whether proper incentives could be restored and which factors should be undertaken for that policy are the key questions for building word-class universities in Russia.
Many post-Soviet countries experience a large demographic shock: the size of the 16-to-19-year age cohortbabies of earlier 1990s-is critically low, when not many people felt brave enough to have children and the birth rate was extremely low.This specific population creates a huge competition at the university sector, for good or even notso-good students.While university administrators face this source of pain, they would obtain the chance to reform the university sector by removing weak institutions and cheap diploma mills.The reforms of academic contracts that would create a better incentive for teachers and would attract new young people into the higher education sector are the key ingredient of success.
Faculty contracts in post-Soviet countries reflect the fact that many universities form primarily educational entities, built around teaching and learning processes.
Compared to professionals outside universities, university teachers are relatively poorly paid.

Ben Jongbloed
Ben Jongbloed is senior research associate at the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies at the University of Twente, the Netherlands.Email: b.w.a.jongbloed@utwente.nl.
I n its recent (2011) communication "Supporting Growth and Jobs-an agenda for the Modernisation of Europe's Higher Education Systems," the European Commission has once again urged Europe's universities to reform their human-resources policies-to increase the autonomy of the universities in this respect and to introduce incentives to reward excellence in teaching and research.Europe's universities will need to recruit academics by flexible, open, and transparent procedures and to provide them with attractive career prospects.Without a committed and adequately compensated professoriate, universities will find it hard to recruit the best and brightest academic talent to work for them and to provide the teaching and research that Europe needs, in order to be a competitive knowledge-driven region.

Salary Levels
When comparing the attractiveness of the academic profession between countries, salaries naturally are the first item to look at.To make meaningful comparisons, one has to correct for differences in cost of living across countries by using a purchasing power parity (PPP) index.
Based on selected country studies reported in the recently published Paying the Professoriate: A Global Comparison of Compensation and Contracts (Altbach, Reisberg, Yudkevich, Androushchak, and Pacheco, eds., 2012) the average salaries for academics have been compared between European countries and the United States.This was done for three levels in the academic hierarchy: the entry level (for example, lecturers and assistant professors), the medium-level (senior lecturers and associate professors), and top level (full professor).It turns out that Europe displays quite a wide variety in academic salaries.Academic payments in the United Kingdom compares relatively well with the United States.While for entry-level positions the UK salaries are lower (US$4,100 in the United Kingdom versus almost US$5,000 in the United States), they are higher for the medium and the top-end positions.The average medium-level academic in the United Kingdom receives over US$5,900, while in the United States this level is over US$6,100.Full professors in the United Kingdom earn over US$8,000-US$1,000 more than in the US universities, after correcting for cost of living differentials.In Germany, salary differences between the three steps on the academic ladder are much smaller than for the United States or the United Kingdom.They range between US$4,900 and US$6,400, displaying levels that are similar to those found in Norway.Academics in the Netherlands, on the other hand, earn salaries that in each step of the ladder are about US$500 less than in the United Kingdom.
French universities are not particularly attractive to foreign professors, due to the national career framework and noncompetitive salaries.On all three levels in the hierarchy, average salaries are some US$2,500 less than in the United States.Hiring in French universities is very centralized with a national screening of candidates by national councils.Until recently, institutional salary policies were not allowed, but this is changing.

Bonuses and Benefits
A bonus system to reward performance in teaching and research has recently been introduced, alongside laws to increase the autonomy of universities and to introduce more differentiation among academics.Bonuses for good performance now also exist in Germany, although only about 25 percent of all university professors there receive such a bonus.
However, salaries alone do not reflect an accurate picture of academic incomes: academic compensation must be measured in broader terms.There often are fringe benefits and allowances that academics may receive on top of their reference wage.Some of these add-ons are determined collectively-often in collective labor market agreements, such as in the Netherlands-and depend on the academic's family status and national regulations, with respect to pensions, parental leave, and health insurance.Other allowances are determined individually, such as performance bonuses, or-as in the case of German professors-depend on the negotiation skills of individuals.

Academic Contracts and Positions
In many countries there is a move toward more fixed-term appointments and a greater number of part-time posts.In

Salaries and Contracts
When comparing the attractiveness of the academic profession between countries, salaries naturally are the first item to look at.
Germany, the terms of continuance of contracts are quite strict, and academic staff are routinely forced to leave a position at the end of a contract.For young researchers, the basic principle is "up or out."Professors are generally civil servants with permanent lifelong positions that they have obtained after receiving habilitation, a formal postdoctoral qualification usually earned after the publication of a major book and a public lecture.Job security and salaries for the other academic staff members, such as lecturers and postdocs, are much less; more than two-thirds are temporary employees with fixed-term contracts.The junior professorship is a new academic category in Germany, created to shorten the time until eligibility for a professorship has been reached, with the intent of abolishing the habilitation.To avoid "inbreeding," it is a general rule that junior professors need to apply for a position at a different institution, after six years.However, so far, the number of such professorships falls short of the original expectations.The typical way to acquire a professorship, a promotion to a higher position, or to increase one's salary involves applying for a professorship at a different university.If the application is successful, it is sometimes possible to negotiate salary supplements and additional resources, in order to stay at one's old university or as a condition for accepting the new position.Due to social insurance and benefits, the income of German academics is quite good, compared to other countries.However, uncertain career prospects make universities appear less attractive employers-especially for young researchers.

Academic Autonomy
Compared to France, universities in the United Kingdom have much more autonomy to appoint whomever they choose and what to pay them.Academics in the United Kingdom do not have civil servant status, unlike in most other European countries.During more than 20 years of continuous marketization, British universities are competing vigorously to attract high-quality academic staff, with better salaries and terms of employment.Each university has different hiring practices, rewards, and promotion criteria.Academic pay and promotions are heavily based on an individual's research productivity, which is assessed regularly.Universities also try to attract leading researchers with nonmonetary rewards-such as equipment and laboratories.Recent years have witnessed a substantial improvement in academic salaries and benefits.However, due to the recent cuts in public funding, the continued affordability of the (quite competitive) UK salaries and benefits has become questionable.The proportion of staff with parttime contracts has increased over the last three years.The ability to secure high-level academics in the future will pose a major challenge to the UK higher education system.

International Competition
Like the United Kingdom, the higher education sector in the Netherlands has always attracted academic talent from the rest of the world.This is clearly not just because of attractive salaries and other benefits and rewards but also due to the recognized excellence in research activities and the reputation of a system open to researchers from all over the world.Academic salaries and other terms of employment in the Dutch higher education system are settled by the universities in negotiations with labor unions that represent academics.The resulting collective labor agreements leave quite some room for individual universities to determine job tasks and tenure criteria, with salary increments increasingly based on an assessment of merit through annual reviews of performance.There is a trend toward more individualized employment contracts.Such "schemes à la carte" help make working conditions in academia more attractive during times where, due to the impending retirement of a large number of senior academics in the years to come, the ability to secure high-level academics will continue to pose a major challenge.
In order for Europe to secure the attractiveness of the academic workplace and to retain talented people (young and old) for its economies, the challenge will be to balance the pay conditions for academics, with a package of nonfinancial rewards-such as facilities for personal development and a reasonable degree of independence in carrying out teaching and research tasks.After all, money is not the only driver of job satisfaction for academics.
Paying the Professoriate: Trends and Issues in India N. Jayaram N. Jayaram is dean and professor at the Tata Institute of Social Science,Mumbai, "We never "had it so good!" was the exclamation one heard when the new pay scales were announced in mid-2008, to be implemented with retrospective effect from January 2006.With arrears of salaries for almost 30 months and a sudden rise in salaries by 40 to 60 percent, teach-

Salaries and Contracts
ers in higher education institutions went laughing to their banks.The steep hike in professoriate's salaries was intended to veer potential candidates to academic positions-in view of the competing demands for talent in the knowledge economy, occasioned by globalization.Simultaneously, to tone up the quality of the profession, requirements for both recruitment and career advancement within it have been redefined, since 2009.But are these sufficient to address the crisis confronting higher education in a burgeoning knowledge economy?

Complex System and Heterogeneous Professoriate
Higher education in India is not only large (the third-largest in the world) but also varied and complex.There are different types of higher education institutions and differences in what the professoriate gets by way of salary and perquisites.While academics working in the federal government-funded institutions have the best-pay package and service conditions, those employed in unaided private colleges have the worst; those in the state government-funded institutions fall in between these two.
The Indian professoriate is also heterogeneous; there are different types of teaching positions, depending upon the duration of employment and the privileges that go with them.The most coveted is the permanent (tenured) teaching position in a public-funded university or college.Permanent positions are nonexistent in purely private universities and colleges; appointment to teaching positions in these institutions is contractual in nature.As different from these two are the part-time teachers who are paid on an hourly basis and do not obtain other employment benefits.

The Pay Revision Highlights
While revising the salary and service conditions of teachers in higher education, the University Grants Commission standardized the qualifications of various categories of teachers, procedures for recruiting them, requirements for and process of their career advancement, and salaries and nonsalary benefits to which they are entitled.A three-tier academic hierarchy-full professor, associate professor, and assistant professor-has been instituted in public-funded higher education institutions.To maintain quality of higher education, qualifications for appointment to various teach-ing positions have been prescribed.Those entering the academic profession (assistant professors) must now qualify in the National Eligibility Test; for appointments to higher academic positions (associate professor and full professor), besides a PhD, which is a mandatory qualification, the candidates must have teaching/research experience and publications to their credit.Academic performance will now be evaluated through a scoring system (Performance Based Appraisal System).The purely private universities and colleges, however, are outside the ambit of the University Grants Commission and have greater flexibility in all matters concerning the hiring and firing of teachers.
Conventionally, the Indian professoriate has been pyramidal in structure, with fewer positions at the top and a broad base.To improve the opportunities of teachers for moving up in the career ladder and as an incentive to performance, a six-stage Career Advancement Scheme has been introduced.This scheme is well-defined and more rigorous than similar other earlier schemes.Given past experience, it will be surprising if this scheme, too, does not get ritualized.

Earnings: Components and Comparison
In all public-funded institutions, teachers are entitled to receive an annual increase of 3 percent in their basic salary.There is, however, no scope for negotiation in salary matters.
Teachers' nonsalary benefits are all as per the government provisions: pension and gratuity; a variety of paid leave, including fully paid vacation leave for eight weeks in a year and subsidies for vacationing; medical leave and medical assistance both for teachers and their dependents are some of such benefits.Besides, women teachers get fully paid maternity leave (one year) and child-care leave (two years), during their career.
Over the decades, the gap in salaries between academic and other professions has narrowed considerably.Nevertheless, professionals in the management, information technology and biotechnology sectors and well-established advocates, doctors, and chartered accountants earn much more than teachers.However, in India, as regards teachers' salary, the general comparison is with that of the bureau-

Those entering the academic profession (assistant professors) must now qualify in the National Eligibility Test.
There is, however, no scope for negotiation in salary matters.
crats; and the salaries of these two are now more or less comparable.The professoriate is now well ensconced in the middle class, has greater purchasing power, and leads better lifestyle than ever before.

Meritocracy and Protective Discrimination
Merit is emphasized in recruitment to academic positions, in public-funded institutions; but nepotism, favoritism, and corruption in selections are not unknown.Selections are often challenged in courts of law, more so after the enactment of the Right to Information Act.
In conformity with the policy of protective discrimination (a sort of affirmative action) public-funded higher education institutions are required to reserve about 50 percent of such positions for candidates, hailing from indigent sections of the population-officially termed "Scheduled Castes," "Scheduled Tribes," and "Other Backward Classes."In public debates, this is criticized as undermining merit, but justified in the name of social justice.

Prospects
The changes in the procedures for recruitment of teachers, their pay scales and service conditions, their performance appraisal and career advancement, and other factors are bold and forward looking; but, they are not applicable to purely private institutions and to part-time teachers.Moreover, the growing faculty shortage, which is estimated to be about 54 percent, is not likely to be answered in the near future.Only institutions offering the best of remunerations and service conditions can expect to maintain the best of teaching talents.Thus, the prospects for state universities and grant-in-aid colleges, which constitute the largest segment of the higher education system in the country, do not appear to be bright.

Rahul Choudaha
Rahul Choudaha is director of Research and Advisory Services at World Education Services, New York.E-mail: rchoudah@wes.org.
T he recent recession is redefining the funding model of public higher education.Top three destinations for international students-the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia-have all experienced budget cuts and stronger emphasis on cost justification and self-sufficiency.
In these times of financial stress and search for additional streams of revenue, undergraduate international students are emerging as saviors.Undergraduate students are less dependent on financial aid, as they are more likely to be funded by families and offer a longer stream of revenue (four years) as compared to master's degree programs (two years).This is where large-source countries, like China and India, have become critical for recruiting undergraduate international students.

Scale and Contrasting Patterns
With more than 700,000 Chinese and Indian students enrolled in global higher education institutions, every third globally mobile student is from these two countries.In the United States, international student enrollment increased by nearly 175,000, between 2000/01 and 2010/11, and Chinese and Indian students contributed to nearly 84 percent of this growth.These procedures indicate the scale and role of these two countries, in global student mobility.
In my earlier article, "Drivers of Mobility of Chinese and Indian Students" (IHE, no. 62, 2011), I argued that Chinese and Indian student mobility was increasing due to a combination of demand and supply factors.On the supply side, the ability has expanded to afford foreign education and rapid expansion of the education pipeline.On the demand side, aggressive outreach efforts by universities and adoption of a wider range of recruitment options are supporting the mobility of Chinese and Indian students.
However, the similarities between China and India on size and factors have ended now, and contrasting patterns of mobility emerge.A major difference is that China has a much stronger growth momentum, at the undergraduate level, than India.The contrasting pattern is clear when juxtaposing the 8 percent decline of Indian undergraduate students to the 43 percent increase of Chinese students in the United States.This translates to an increase of 17,055 Merit is emphasized in recruitment to academic positions, in public-funded institutions; but nepotism, favoritism, and corruption in selections are not unknown.
Chinese students, compared to a decrease of 1,188 Indian undergraduate students.For every one Indian student, there are four Chinese undergraduate students.
This dissimilar pattern becomes extremely important given the economic woes, faced by public institutions and their search for international undergraduate students with limited budgets.However, are these trends for Chinese and Indian undergraduate students sustainable and what are the future directions?

Reversal of Trends for 2015?
I estimate that beginning in 2015, growth directions of the undergraduate market for China and India will experience a reversal in trends.This is the time when India would surface as a major growth country for undergraduate student recruitment, while China would start losing its growth momentum.However, in terms of absolute numbers of undergraduate enrollment, China will continue to outpace India.An estimate for reversal of the trend is based on four interrelated factors.
Demographic shifts.The Chinese population in the 15-19-age bracket is projected to decline by 17 percent between 2010 and 2015, translating into 18 million less college-going youth, according to the US census data.In contrast, India's college-going population is projected to increase by 5 million, or 5 percent, in the same period.This means that in 2015, India would have nearly 20 million more collegegoing people in the 15-19-age group than China.Thus, demographic patterns in China and India will influence the supply of potential undergraduate students.
"Self-financed" students.China already surpasses India in terms of wealth and size of the middle class, which can fund foreign undergraduate education.For example, China had 535,000 individuals with investable assets of US$1 million or more; India had 153,000 in 2010.Furthermore, the single-child policy in China has allowed family resources to concentrate on one child.However, children of wealthy middle-class Indian parents who started working in newage industries, like information technology, in the mid-late 1990s will start graduating from 2015 onwards.This seg-ment of "self-financed" students will expect quality and have an ability to afford international undergraduate education.
Pace of education reforms.Both China and India have their share of problems in balancing quality and access.Given China's track record of aggressively expanding the system and welcoming foreign institutions, it is more likely to successfully enforce quality.This reform will offer more quality choices to Chinese students at home.In contrast, pace of reforms in India has been very slow and embroiled with politics rather than policy.It is unlikely that Indian higher education would keep pace with the demand for quality education.This inability to absorb demand will increase "self-financed" Indian students and fuel their demand for foreign education.
Campus concerns.Given the overreliance on Chinese undergraduate students, concerns are growing about campus diversity and the role of agents in driving this growth.A recent story in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "The China Conundrum," referred to the large number of Chinese students on some campuses as "what seems at first glance a boon for colleges and students alike is, on closer inspection, a tricky fit for both."In reference to agents, it added, "Though the agents act as universities' representatives, marketing them at college fairs and soliciting applications, that's no guarantee that colleges know the origin of the applications, or the veracity of their grades and scores."Campus concerns, such as diversity and potential threat to integrity of the admissions process due to fraudulent agent behavior, may induce less dependency on the Chinese students.

Conclusion
Public higher education in leading destinations for international students is clearly shifting toward self-sufficiency, resulting in pressure to recruit more international undergraduate students as an additional source of revenue.China and India are large source countries for international undergraduate students, which are expected to show different trends, beginning in 2015.Given that undergraduate recruitment requires a significant amount of seeding and relationship-building, institutions should start preparing for these shifting patterns.However, institutions should not let fiscal urgency and quest for numbers make them lose focus on the quality of students recruited, integrity of admissions process, and campus diversity.

Exchanges and Flows
With more than 700,000 Chinese and Indian students enrolled in global higher education institutions, every third globally mobile student is from these two countries.

Philip G. Altbach
Philip G. Altbach is Monan professor of higher education and director of the Center for International Higher Education, Boston College.
T he emerging economies of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) will, it is assumed, lure both home students who go abroad to study when they finish their degrees and some graduates who have settled in the Westbecause of their dramatic economic growth and expanding higher education systems.The problem is that data seem to show that this is not the case.The brain drain, now euphemistically called the brain exchange, seems to be alive and well.Research by Dongbin Kim, Charles A. S. Bankart, and Laura Isdell ("International doctorates: Trends analysis on their decision to stay in US," Higher Education 62 (August 2011) shows that the large majority of international doctoral recipients from American universities remain in the United States after graduation.Even more surprisingly, the proportion of those choosing to stay in the United States has increased over the past three decades, seemingly regardless of growth and academic expansion.There is strong evidence that we live in a worldwide era of global mobility of highly skilled talent in general and of the academic profession in particular, but this mobility flows largely in one directionfrom developing and emerging economies to the wealthier nations, especially to the English-speaking countries.
Much has been written about the supposedly obsolescence of the term brain drain.Globalization, it is argued, brings in its train a globally mobile and highly educated labor force-creating a kind of brain exchange among countries.But the data reported here show that mobility, while quite sizable, is one-way, mainly from developing and emerging economies to wealthier nations.There is a growing flow of ideas and capital back to countries of origin, but one cannot escape the fact that the major economic and social contribution is made in the country in which an individual is primarily located.The realities of globalization remain highly unequal.While brains may no longer be permanently drained, they are nonetheless siphoned, with the possibility (not that frequently implemented) of returning to their origins.

Who Goes and Who Stays?
The countries with the most impressive economic and educational expansion seem to be those with the largest "stay" rates, according to the National Academy of Science's Sur-vey of Earned Doctorates (SED), which tracks all international doctoral students studying in the United States.For example, during the 1980s, 25.9 percent of Chinese doctoral graduates returned immediately after completing their degrees.In the 2000s, the return percentage had declined to 7.4 percent.India's figures are also quite low-13.1 percent returned in the 1980s and 10.3 percent in the 2000s.Yet, return rates vary considerably, ranging from 84 percent of Thais, 60 percent of Mexicans and Brazilians, and 39.5 percent of Africans.A particular surprise is the European return rate, which has gone from 36.9 to 25.7 percent over 30 years.
There are other variables, as well.Women are somewhat more likely to remain in the United States than men.International students who have their bachelor's degree in the United States are also more likely to stay, as are students who come from well-educated families.Field of study also seems to make a difference, with degree holders in agriculture (54.2%), education (48.5%), and social science (44.1%) most likely to return, and those in biology (19.3%), physical science (21.8%), and business (31.9%)less likely.
The SED data exhibit some limitations.Students typically complete a questionnaire asking for background information, educational experience, and plans supplied by the National Science Foundation and administered by graduate schools nationwide when they submit their approved doctoral dissertation.Some respondents may not be fully aware of their plans.Furthermore, plans reported in the SED may not work out.Some students may, for example, obtain a postdoc and return home after that for a variety of reasons.Others may, in the current difficult academic job market, unsuccessfully search for a position.Because the SED measures only doctoral completion, it is likely that this group is mainly headed for academic jobs-we know nothing about return rates for MBA holders or those completing bachelor's or master's degrees.Despite limitations, the SED is the most accurate tool available.
There is strong evidence that we live in a worldwide era of global mobility of highly skilled talent in general and of the academic profession in particular, but this mobility flows largely in one direction-from developing . . .
The study-abroad statistics cited here relate only to the United States, but it is quite likely that the general pattern of mobility is similar for other host countries and, especially, the major English-speaking and large continental European nations.Variations based on immigration policies, local labor markets, the relatively openness of the academic system and economy, language, and other factors will no doubt affect stay rates.

Patterns and Policies
Some economies and academic systems have benefited substantially from the patterns noted here.For example, an estimated one-quarter of Silicon Valley high-technology start-ups were established by immigrants, many of whom received their advanced education in the United States.American universities, from the most prestigious institutions to community colleges, have large numbers of immigrant scholars and scientists on their faculties, and a growing number have risen to top leadership positions.
Why do the international doctoral holders, counted by the SED, choose to remain in the United States?While each case has an individual story, the general reasons are not hard to determine.For all of the current problems of American colleges and universities, the terms and conditions of academic work-including salaries-are by international standards quite good.Having studied in the United States, international degree holders have familiarity with the system and often can call on mentors to assist them in the local job market.Although a few countries, such as China, offer incentives for top graduates to return home, such programs are small and serve only the top elite.For many, returning home to academic institutions that may be hierarchical and sometimes ill-equipped is not an attractive prospect.In the emerging economies, academic salaries are low and moonlighting is often necessary to support a middle-class lifestyle.Even in China's top universities, which have received massive infusions of money and have built impressive campuses, the academic culture is often problematical for graduates familiar with the relatively open and meritocratic institutions in the United States or other better-established academic systems.While conditions and salaries may be better in the emerging high-tech and business sectors in the emerging economies, problems persist.Efforts by countries-such as, China and India-to lure their graduates home have been mostly unsuccessful.Some European nations, including Germany, have also actively tried to entice their PhDs and postdocs to return, with only modest success.
The immigration policies of the rich countries also play a central role.Despite America's success in retaining its international doctoral graduates, US immigration policy until quite recently has not been aimed at easing entry to the highly skilled.Even now greater emphasis is placed on uniting families, increasing the diversity of the immigrant population, and other factors.It remains to be seen whether pressure from the high-tech community and others will be adopted to open opportunities to the highly skilled.Other countries, including Canada and Australia, have quite consciously tailored immigration policy to favor highly educated groups and have made it easy for international graduates to remain in the country and build a career.European countries are also moving in this direction.

Conclusion
The statistics reported here may come as a surprise to some observers.These data are likely an inevitable result of globalization and the inequalities in higher education and in wealth and development that persist.It is fair to say that the host countries are unconcerned about these imbalances, and indeed most are moving to strengthen their advantages through adjustments in academic and scholarship policies and immigration regulations.If stay rates are a sign of continuing inequalities in the global knowledge system and in higher education, it will demand achieving a better balance and will require time, resources, and in some cases, changing in academic structures and practices.While there is much rhetoric about globalization creating a "level playing field," the realities show something quite different.

Simon Marginson
Simon Marginson is professor of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia.His most recent book is Ideas for Intercultural Education (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) with Erlenawati Sawir.E-mail: s.marginson@unimelb.edu.au.
I nternational education is a major sector in Australia.Al- most 30 percent of all students in higher education are foreign students.Revenue from their tuition-Australia has few scholarships and nearly all nonresidents pay fullcost fees-provided 18 percent of the university income in 2010.
Australia has become a by-word for making money out of international student flows.It is less effective in sending Exchanges and Flows its own students offshore or establishing a broader education and research relationship, with the sending countries in Asia that provide four-fifths of the students.
International education is the nation's third-or fourthlargest export after coal and iron ore and sometimes gold, depending on fluctuating gold prices.It employs 125,000 people.It has become a vital source of high-skilled migrants.More than one-third of all graduates migrate.

The Slump
For two decades, international student numbers saw almost uninterrupted growth, from about 30,000 students in all sectors of education in 1990 to 630,700 in 2009, an extraordinary average annual increase of 17 percent.Australia, with less than 23 million people, enrolls 7 percent of all foreign tertiary students.However, in the last three years, government policy and regulation-not to mention Australia's reputation in India and standing with education agents in China-have been on the roller coaster.In 2011 there were 557,425 students, 12 percent below the 2009 level.
In 2011, International Higher Education (no.62) reported the factors that had triggered decline in international student applications, visas granted, and students enrolled.Between 2009 and 2011 students in vocational education dropped by 18 percent and in specialist English-language colleges by 31 percent.Higher education enrollments rose slightly in 2010 but leveled off between 2010 and 2011, and applications for 2012 were trending down.
The problems began in Australia's second-source country, India.In 2009, Australian authorities moved slowly to crack down on violent assaults affecting South Asian students and were criticized in the Indian media.The same authorities moved more quickly to crack down on a miniindustry selling backdoor migration via student visas, via collusion between agents in India and private colleges in Australia.Colleges providing little genuine training were closed.But this meant losing more students from India.At the same time, the government set tough work and language tests, regulating the passage from student gradua-tion to permanent residence status.Australia lost even more business in India.

Migration Resistance
In 2010, an election year, migration resistance was evident.The federal government cut back migration targets.This impacted international education because short-term migration for educational purposes is part of official migration numbers (the same issue bedevils international education in the United Kingdom, another nation that has reduced migration).This led to a more restrictive approach to student visas, with longer delays and steep financial support tests.
The problem was compounded by US currency depreciation, which pushed the Australian dollar above parity with the US dollar, for the first time in decades, making Australian international education more expensive, in relative terms.China provides a quarter of all international students in Australia; and education agents, who control most of the student flows from that country, switched much of the traffic from Australia to the United States and Canada.Applications to enter Australia from China dropped sharply.Numbers entering the United States rose to record levels.
With the Australian education "industry," as it is called, trending down on all fronts and predictions of a 40 to 50 percent drop ahead, the federal government was forced to act.It was clear that if the export industry collapsed, the government would have to increase public funding, to bail out the universities.It created a committee chaired by Michael Knight-a former politician, who presided over the successful Sydney Olympics in 2008-to inquire into student visa policy.
The recommendations of the Knight committee were adopted in full by the government, in September 2011.They constituted a dramatic policy reversal and a return to high migration.Student visa processing was speeded up.Applications for university from all countries were assigned to the lowest-risk category, with no mandatory financial tests and with the proviso that universities were now responsible for guaranteeing the bona fides of their students.Englishlanguage tests were relaxed for entry into specialist Englishlanguage colleges.Graduates were provided with temporary work visas of two to four years, providing enhanced opportunities to earn income and acquire work experience, useful for an application for migration status.

Going Up Again?
The Knight changes were not immediately extended to the training sector, but this will follow.However, the longerterm impact of the reversal is unclear.It is likely the steep dive in the market has been arrested, but tendencies set in The same authorities moved more quickly to crack down on a mini-industry selling backdoor migration via student visas, via collusion between agents in India and private colleges in Australia.Eastern Europe and Central Asia train in 2009-2010 are still running, the Australian dollar remains high, and the switch of Chinese students from Australia to the United States continues.
In the last six months of 2011, half of which postdated the Knight committee changes, new offshore visas from China for all sectors of education were down by 21 percent, compared to the same period in 2010.Numbers from India, which had plummeted in 2010, rose by 78 percent in 2011.There was a decline of 13 percent for both Vietnam and Malaysia.Early reports of university enrollments for 2012 indicated a mixed pattern of increases and decreases.
Australia remains overdependant on international student tuition.Earnings are still high by world standards, but every last dollar is ploughed back into the cost of the business or the cost of local teaching and research-rather than a richer two-way international engagement.This is because for two decades the federal government has remorselessly reduced government funding.There is a lesson here for governments in other countries that are cutting back public funding.It is unreasonable to expect noncore foreign students to provide core funding for the system, and this stymies the potential for a cosmopolitan education that would benefit all.

Paul Serban Agachi
Paul Serban Agachi is president of the Academic Council, Universitatea "Babes-Bolyai," Cluj, Romania.E-mail: serban.agachi@ubbcluj.ro.R omanians may be regarded as belonging to the Medi- terranean culture-with relaxed values regarding time, precision, and hard work but with good characteristics in inventiveness, flexibility in approach, and adaptability to diverse environments.All these characteristics are bred on a strong heritage of the communist regime of over 50 years, a period when fake values were promoted in all fields; and lack of initiative and hidden disobedience have been encouraged to exist.This explains mainly why Romania is in this situation now.
Major changes occurred in Romania, after 1990.The market economy replaced the state-owned centralized one; the number of small-and medium-sized enterprises increased from 0 to almost 400,000 in 2010; the exports sector moved from 10 billion per year in the 1980s to 50 billion per year in 2011; and a tremendous increase in communications facilities has taken place: first place in Europe and fourth in the world, for an average speed of Internet connections.

The Higher Education Sector
Before the 1989 Revolution, the Romanian higher education sector was restricted: 44 higher education institutions (all of them state universities or institutes), 163,000 students (710 students per 100,000 of the population), number of PhD students (under 0.3%) and number of university teachers (11,700).
After 1989, the Romanian landscape of higher education changed radically: 70 brand new universities were created, and the student population increased, almost with 500 percent, until 2009.Romania really required and still needs a labor force much better skilled, than before, to reach the expectations of a more modern economy-from 5 percent labor force with a higher education degree in 1990, to 14 percent in 2010, in comparison with 26 percent in the European Union and 40 percent in the United States in 2010.The figures characterizing the higher education sector in 2009 are: 112 higher education institutions (both public and private, at parity), 1,107,362 students, 3 percent of PhD students, and 31,964 of the university teachers.The number of students per 100,000 of the population is of 5,151 in 2009, in comparison with 6,296 in the United States, 6,599 in Russia, 5,684 in Poland, or 3,525 in France.The number of students from rural areas or disadvantaged categories is at 15 percent only.
Concerning the quality of Romanian higher education, all universities have stated on their Web sites as missions: good-quality education, research at the international level, and services for society.The strategic approach is quite a new one, being introduced in 1998; and all new public and private institutions wanted mimetically to do the same thing-copying the strategic programs of the leading universities.
The competition among Romanian universities is rather a new concept, which developed under the recent circumstances of low funding, global competition, and demographic decrease.Recently, as a consequence of a new Major changes occurred in Romania, after 1990.The market economy replaced the state-owned centralized one.Eastern Europe and Central Asia law of national education (2011), a classification in three programs at Romanian higher education institutions, depending mainly on the intensity of research, has been done: 12 research intensive universities, 29 universities for education and research, and 61 universities for education.The classification has the expressed intention to redistribute the budgetary allocations to the universities and to support at least two universities to become world class and in the top 500 of the rankings.There are 4 universities in Romania that can aim to the world-class category (University Alexandru Ioan Cuza Iassy, University Babes-Bolyai Cluj, University of Bucharest, and University Politehnica Bucharest) and another 30 to 35 good-quality institutions (public and private, including those of arts).

Contemporary Crises
The major problems with which Romanian higher education is encountered include: weak personnel qualifications because of the absence of financial motivation and of real competition (60% of universities established after 1989 lacked appropriate legislation concerning quality assurance and also appropriate human-resource policies); teaching orientation, focused too much on accumulation, rather than solving problems; bureaucracy imposed by legislation; corruption; nepotism; lack of transparency in the university management; absence of the appropriate channels and modalities of communication inside the academic community; lack of vision and leadership at the governance of the higher education institutions; chronic underfunding; and weak elective system for leading positions in the universities.Of course, all these problems are not found in all Romanian universities, but probably at least some of them can be found in any university in Romania.
Additionally, gross domestic product (GDP) allocated to education was at 6 percent in political statements and never exceeded 3.5 percent in reality.The allocations in research were at a peak of 0.79 percent of GDP in 2008, which created an ambition in this sector at that time.Since then, due to the economic crisis, the allocations for research decreased severely to 0.18 percent of GDP in 2009, increasing slightly after that; in education the allocation is 2.8 percent of GDP this year.What the economic crisis added to the picture in the public universities is a 25 percent decrease of the salaries of the personnel, the prohibition of employing teaching staff over three years in the public universities, and the decrease of investments close to zero.The crisis is coming on the threatening background of the decrease of demography, which will be a drop of 30 percent in 2013.
The controversial new law of education, while not being passed through the Parliament, tries to solve these problems of the education sectors by a forceful policy.The law intends to forbid wrong opinions of the legislators and does not have a stimulating spirit, curbing the university autonomy.Probably, this law will not be successful, although it will be everybody's interest to solve the problems of Romanian higher education.

Conclusion
Romania radically changed its political system in 1990, inducing transformations in the education sector as well.The market economy was reflected in the higher education sector, too-with higher education becoming a business as well as information technology and other services.While the private initiative formed an intrepid transition, brandnew universities have been opened on a background of weak legislation, regarding quality.
The most important progress is the increase in the number of students (almost 5 times) and the growth of the labor force with a tertiary degree (from under 5% to 14%).The law of education fails to differentiate universities in categories based on their missions.
Despite these problems, the Romanian higher education system is functioning at quite normal parameters: 81 percent of the graduates are employed, compared with 82 percent in the European Union; three to four universities are classified in a number of international rankings, in the categories 600-1000.The infrastructure (buildings, teaching, and research equipment) is competitive for offering decent conditions of learning; and the international scientific contribution increased three times in recent years.
The Challenges of Building a World-Class University: Lessons from Slovenia

Philip G. Altbach
Philip G. Altbach is Monan professor of higher education and director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.
S lovenia, a small country with a population of 2 million in the middle of central Europe, takes higher education seriously.It educates a respectable 67 percent of its age group in higher education.Its three universities enroll 81,617 students-two-thirds of them at the University of Ljubljana.Public expenditure on higher education is around 1.25 per-Eastern Europe and Central Asia cent, not bad in the European Union context, and significantly ahead of its neighbors in the former Yugoslavia and the Balkans.Slovenian universities are arguably the best in the region.Slovenia's higher education context-and aspirations-has relevance not only for other countries with small populations but also for universities with a traditional continental European pattern of academic governance and administration.

The Context
Slovenia is committed to an egalitarian philosophy of higher education.All of the public universities have a research mission, and tuition is free for full-time undergraduate students.There is one small private university.At the end of secondary school, students who score well on the matura examination are, in most cases, automatically admitted to a university.Those who do not quite meet the standards can often enroll in an evening or other part-time programs, where tuition is charged, and end up with the same degree as the regular students.The pattern of "dual track" study with variations in tuition and admissions standards-now common in some European countries, China, and elsewhere-distorts student admissions, teaching loads for professors, and creates other problems.Tuition is also charged for doctoral study.
In common with many universities in continental Europe, rectors are elected by the academic staff, with additional participation of students (who control 20% of the votes).They serve four-year terms and can be reelected.Similarly, deans are also elected, and a strong ethos of autonomy exists throughout the academic system.Campus interest groups-including autonomous and well-funded student unions and professor interest groups-are powerful.
A 2011 National Higher Program for Slovenia, recently approved by Parliament, lists a range of initiatives for reforms in higher education and research, by 2020.These factors are aimed at improving Slovenia's research infrastructure and output, as well as boosting the country's internationalization and to some extent diversifying the higher education system; although the list of innovations is long and the guidelines for specific implementation is limited.The devil is, of course, in the details, and implementing significant change in Slovenia's consensus-driven system will probably be a challenge, particularly since higher education attracts a good deal of public interest.

World-Class for Slovenia?
What might a world-class university look like in the Slovenian context?Certainly, no Slovenian university can aim to compete with Berkeley or Oxford.The country could not finance a Berkeley nor does it have the population base to support an Oxford.But at least one Slovenian institution, no doubt the University of Ljubljana, could become a globally competitive university in a number of academic fields and internationally visible as an institution.As a nation that depends on its human resources that sits in a strategic place in Europe, the 2011 National Higher Education Program makes sense, although it does not seem to go far enough in concentrating financial and human resources.
The strategy makes a sharp break with past thinking.At least it recognizes the need for Slovenia to work harder on higher education.The traditional view seemed to be general satisfaction with an academic environment that is good but not great.Assuming that Slovenia at some point will wish to play in the academic big leagues, what would be required to fulfill existing possibilities and secure a place in the European and global knowledge economy?
The Prospects Paths to academic excellence vary according to national and institutional circumstances, but it is easy to identify some of the Slovenian realities that create problems for improvement-challenges that are shared by many countries and institutions.While the possibilities for significant improvement may objectively be present, policy and governance issues pose daunting obstacles.The following factors will, at least in part, determine Slovenia's academic future.
Governance.In common with many European universities, top academic leaders in Slovenia are elected to fouryear terms of office.They typically return to the faculty, following administrative service.Rectors, for example, are elected by the academic community-including academic staff and students, who have 20 percent of the votes.Rectors and deans, typically, govern by consensus and are seldom willing to exercise leadership that may create strong opposition in the academic community.This means that universities seldom, if ever, have strong internal leadership with the option to make decisions that may create dissent or controversy.Elected top management will be unable to implement the serious decisions that are inevitably required for building academic excellence.

What might a world-class university look like in the Slovenian context? Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Funding.Full-time undergraduate students pay no tuition in Slovenia-although fees are charged for part-time study and some graduate programs.Thus, universities are largely dependent on direct government funding.In mass higher education systems, public funding can never provide both access and excellence; the costs are simply too high.For Slovenia to achieve world-class excellence, it will need to find additional funds to support an expensive research university; and it is unrealistic to expect total state funding.There is probably no alternative to charging tuition to all students-of course, with appropriate scholarship assistance for students who may not be able to afford the costs.At the same time, the state will need to enhance funding and to ensure that required resources are available over the long term.Additional income can be obtained by enhanced cooperation with industry and other agencies.Excellent universities can prosper only with sustained funding.
Academic differentiation.Slovenia's three public universities are all research universities and are similarly funded.Even in a small country, it is necessary to differentiate academic missions among the universities.Slovenia can afford one research-intensive university, the University of Ljubljana.The other institutions, which are newer and much smaller, must focus on teaching at the undergraduate level.Financial and human resources must be carefully concentrated.It will, of course, be quite controversial to strip or severely constrain existing universities from some of their current roles and to ensure that research and doctoral education is carefully limited in the future.
"Steering."Determining broad academic directions and policies cannot be left to the academic community alone.Broad "steering" of higher education policy for the nation can only be developed and implemented by the government.While consultation with stakeholders, especially the academics themselves, is necessary, difficult decisions will inevitably be made by outsiders.Further, continuing governmental supervision of university policy is required to keep the system "on track."This may be particularly difficult in Slovenia's consensus-driven society, where higher education is frequently a political concern.
Selective excellence.Few universities can afford to be world class in all specialties.For a small country, careful selections will be required as to what fields and disciplines can be truly world class and which should be "merely excellent."Based on national needs, economic realities, and current academic strengths and interests, a limited number of areas-including interdisciplinary and cutting-edge fields-can be selected for concentration.Targeted funds and other resources can be provided.
Internationalization. A fine line always stands between serving national obligations and playing in the international big leagues.If the University of Ljubljana desires to achieve a world-class status, it must focus on further internationalization.This includes offering more academic programs in English; enhancing its exchange relationships; looking first to provide strong leadership to central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; and, to some extent, engaging with North America and emerging Asia.Slovenia is an excellent site for research on central European themes, and the university can build its interdisciplinary strengths in understanding the challenges and possibilities of the former Yugoslavia and the region.
However, the balance between national needs and concerns and internationalization is not easy to achieve.Particularly for a small country, the universities are at the center of intellectual life and central institutions for maintaining and enhancing national language and culture.At the same time, the universities are among the most internationalized institutions in the country, and the pressures are great to increasingly engage with the rest of the world.In the Slovenian case, these forces are particularly complex, since they involve the Bologna agenda, working with the Balkans, and to some extent a broader international agenda.
The Future Slovenia, a small country with a favorable geographical position in the middle of Europe and with a good academic infrastructure, has the potential for excellence.It already includes perhaps the best university in the region.Reaching for world-class excellence is a challenge, but this standard is not impossible.For a country dependent on its human resources, university development is a logical step.If Singapore can become a knowledge hub, why not Slovenia?
For a small country, careful selections will be required as to what fields and disciplines can be truly world class and which should be "merely excellent." In addition to our Web site and Facebook page, we are now tweeting.We hope you will consider "following" us on Twitter!

Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic
Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic is an independent consultant in global higher education.She was formerly chief of the Higher Education Section at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.E-mail: suvalictrumbic@gmail.com.
I n Serbia a new higher education strategy, as a wider re- form, treats education from preschool to doctoral studies in a holistic manner.European Union documents and targets provide the overall inspiration for the strategy, notably the Europe 2020 objectives of growth for which education and training are vital.
However, higher education in Serbia inherits a challenging legacy.It was originally part of a wider Yugoslav higher education context but has since suffered years of civil war, political instability, and economic sanctions.

Boosting Enrollment
Serbia's principal challenge is to raise its gross enrollment rate, currently only 26.6 percent, toward the European average of 50 to 55 percent-and to move to this level without producing too many graduates or lowering standards.Demographic trends partly account for low, and declining, enrollments; but high-graduate unemployment, a by-product of the poor economic situation, is a more immediate cause.Also a steady and massive brain drain has occurred over the past 20 years, which has been more extensive in Serbia than elsewhere in the western Balkans.Designing higher education curricula that are more closely aligned to labormarket requirements will go some way to address this problem.Recruiting new researchers is another crucial issue, given the European target of creating at least 1 million new research jobs, in order to reach a research and development target of 3 percent of gross domestic product.

Legacy of the Past: Overcoming Fragmentation
A particular challenge for higher education in Serbia-a historic legacy of all former Yugoslav republics-is the tradition that universities are groupings of semiautonomous faculties rather than fully integrated institutions.Integrated corporate structures are essential for any sustainable reforms, yet 20 years of debate have not resolved this question in major universities, such as Belgrade, although some smaller institutions have made progress.Furthermore, recent proliferation of higher education institutions further fragments the subsector and works against coherent planning.Before Yugoslavia disintegrated, Serbia had four universities, in Serbia proper, and another two in its autonomous provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo.Today, the draft strategy mentions 13 accredited universities (7 public and 6 private) for a population that is now smaller than in those earlier days-and still declining.
A critical issue is to reduce the number of separate public universities, to achieve a more rational network of institutions-matching the needs of the country.

Serbia and European Processes
Since 2003, Serbia has participated well in European initiatives-such as, the European Higher Education Area and later the European Research Area.This has ensured the gradual evolution of degree structures, the development of national qualifications frameworks based on learning outcomes, the establishment of quality-assurance mechanisms, and the inclusion of key stakeholders-i.e., students, in decision-making processes.Unfortunately, however, there is no critical analysis of the implementation of the Bologna process-acknowledging, perhaps, that some changes may have been merely cosmetic.For example, changing the degree framework without reforming study programs has put both students and faculty under pressure.In addition, the value of the bachelor's degree has been diminished, as it no longer provides access to the labor market, and also of the master's degree, which has lost its research component.

Diversification
To diversify the higher education sector, the 2005 Higher Education Act introduced a binary system with four-year professional studies, although it did not provide movement between the university and nonuniversity sectors.The major reform needed now is to amend the legislation covering the nonuniversity tertiary sector, to promote greater vertical and horizontal mobility.Serbia's current arrangements are inconsistent with the practice of vertical and horizontal movement of students found elsewhere in Europe.
At the other end of the spectrum, in its quest for excellence, the strategy aspires to develop competency indicators

Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Higher education in Serbia inherits a challenging legacy.It was originally part of a wider Yugoslav higher education context but has since suffered years of civil war, political instability, and economic sanctions.
for higher education institutions at the national level and also to introduce policies to help a few Serbian universities rate highly in major international university rankings and achieve top spots in regional rankings.
High positions in international and/or regional rankings boost national pride, and Serbian higher education institutions undoubtedly achieve excellence in some disciplines.Research shows that three conditions for securing high positions in international league tables constitute strong leadership, purposeful governance structures, and substantial investment of resources.However, the necessary resources seems unavailable in Serbia; and even if they were, they might be better deployed in developing a quality higher education system for Serbia, as a whole-instead of boosting a few select institutions without a guarantee of success.

Academic Corruption
Faced with a major case of academic corruption, resulting in legal repercussions and resignations of faculty deans in 2007, the strategy proposes a Code of Ethics at the institutional level for all universities.To have real impact, it seems that such a code could be reinforced as an element of quality assurance and accreditation and be monitored regularly.

Turning Weaknesses into Strengths
Serbia should seek to turn its weaknesses into strengths.For example, incentives could be created for the universities to include Serbia's impressive intellectual diaspora in their teaching and research, through visiting professors positions and joint research projects.Now that memories of civil war are receding, Serbia should also exploit the common linguistic heritage of the western Balkans to develop joint doctoral studies with other countries of the region.Creating regional disciplinary networks with poles of excellence in Serbia and throughout the Yugo-sphere might be a mechanism for reducing the number of universities, increasing quality, and reinforcing the relevance of study programs.

Conclusion
Will this new strategy, though a well-researched and thorough document, just be one of many that have never been implemented, a political asset in function of the upcoming elections in Serbia?Unless it is integrated with overall policies in other sectors and is an integral part of Serbia's wider Strategy for Economic Development (for the decade to 2020), it is likely to remain an isolated document-with little chances for the much-needed improvements of the higher education system.Kyrgyzstan's Scheme for a New Degree System-But Is It Ready?

Martha C. Merrill and Chynara Ryskulova
Martha C.Merrill teaches in the higher education administration program at Kent State University.E-mail: mmerril@kent.edu.Chynara Ryskulova, who has worked at the American University in Central Asia for 14 years, currently is a Fulbright Scholar at Kent State.E-mail: chynara.ryskulova@gmail.com.
O n August 23, 2011, the government of the Kyrgyz Republic issued a decree (postavleniya) regarding all higher education institutions in the country-except for medical, art, and music, and some engineering programs.The institutions were required to adopt a two-tier system of higher education-a four-year bachelor's degree and a two-year master's degree-and to use credit hours, by the 2012/13 academic year.This plan, while well intentioned, will be impossible to implement effectively in the time frame.

Background
Kyrgyzstan is a small, beautiful, deeply impoverished country in central Asia.Its per capita gross domestic product of $2,200 puts it 187th out of 228 countries in the world.Moreover, according to a recent World Bank report, 21 percent of that gross domestic product forms remittances from workers abroad, primarily in Kazakhstan and Russia.
The countries Kyrgyzstan is ethnically or economically tied to-including Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkey-are in the Bologna process.Since Kyrgyzstan is dependent on labor mobility, adopting educational policies found in those countries has consisted Kyrgyzstan's agenda since its independence in 1991, leading to considerable institutional diversity.While most of the 52 higher education institutions in the country use contact hours, some use credit hours, and some use both.Degrees such as a first degree (Diplom), a candidate of sciences (kandidat nauk), and a doctor of sciences (doktor nauk) are awarded.Also available are bachelor's degrees and master's degrees, of various lengths-sometimes in the same institution.Curricula used nationwide are written by the Educational and Methodological Unions, expert groups appointed by the Ministry of Education.The ministry awards all diplomas and controls licensing and attestation for both public and private institutions.

Requirements of the New Decree
The August decree calculates credit hours as does the European Credit Transfer System-30 credits per semester.The four-year bachelor's degree requires 240 credits and the two-year master's, 120 credits.One credit is defined as 36 academic hours, including contact hours in class, independent work, and exams.The decree also states that students should not work more than 54 hours per week, and that 50 percent of the students' time should be contact hours.The bachelor's level curriculum will have five components: humanities, social, and economics courses; mathematics and natural sciences courses; professional (major) courses; physical education; and an internship and research work.Each of the first three components must have required and elective courses.The required part should be not less than 70 percent for the bachelor's degree and not less than 40 percent for the master's degree.Curricula still will be written centrally, by instruction method boards (UMOs), and no changes are foreseen in licensing and attestation processes.
All of the requirements listed above are also found in the 2010 Russian Federal State Education Standards.The idea of 54 hours per week being the maximum allowed period comes from the Soviet Labor code.

Problems Foreseen
The quick change to the bachelor's and master's degree and credit-hour system is likely to create many problems.
Regarding compensation, whether a professor should be considered in a full-time position and thus eligible for benefits currently is determined by the number of hours he or she is in the classroom.No alternative system has been devised for proving who is in a full-time position, nor has a new system of calculating salaries or workload been created.Most professors do not understand that the credithour system requires many more hours of preparation and grading outside of class than does the current system; they equate time in the classroom with workload.Indeed, some universities that claim to have adopted credit hours have added a category of "independent work with faculty" for periods when faculty supervise students doing their home assignments, thus keeping the number of contact hours the same for professors and avoiding the salary issue.
Another constituency that does not understand credit hours includes parents.Parents who were educated in the Soviet era often equate time spent with the professor with quality, and they care about the completion of the five-year first degree (diplom).Shorter degrees were officially designated as "not complete higher education." Academics themselves also have little information about what the new system requires.Many professors believe that students who pay tuition for their studies-a new concept in the post-Soviet era-are purchasing their education and thus cannot be dismissed as long as they keep paying.Unfortunately, it is a short leap from the idea that one "buys" an education under capitalism to the concept that one can buy grades and diplomas as well.Many also believe that in a credit-hour system professors are not allowed to fail students.This statement was in a Russian-language document, "explaining" the Bologna process, published in Kazakhstan and widely distributed in Kyrgyzstan.
Academically, the purpose of the change is to permit Kyrgyzstan to enter "the world educational space," yet no country except Russia uses a credit-hour system that demands 27 hours of seat time a week (50% of the maximum 54 hours of work) and mixes the US-style four-year bachelor's degree with Bologna reforms.
Additionally, neither students nor faculty are prepared to learn and teach in a system that requires independent work, nor are library and computer resources available.The Ministry of Education has no plans for faculty development; when asked, ministry staff told the authors without a doubt, it will happen.Similarly, few administrators are familiar with procedures needed for the newly mandated elective courses: how to design, approve, publicize, and schedule them.
Also unaddressed is quality assessment; the criteria currently in use, such as square meters per student, are based on a contact-hour system.Each of the new bachelor's and master's degree programs will need to be licensed before it can begin to operate, but ministry staff told us no plans had been made to increase the number of those working in this area.When each program has its first group of graduates, state attestation is required, with institutional reports and visiting teams appointed by and responsible to the Ministry of Education.

Eastern Europe and Central Asia
This plan, while well intentioned, will be impossible to implement effectively in the time frame.
The four-year bachelor's degree requires 240 credits and the two-year master's, 120 credits.
Kyrgyzstan does not have an independent accrediting agency, although educators participate in the Trans-European Mobility Scheme for University Studies (TEMPUS)funded Central Asian Network for Quality Assurance, which holds conferences and issues papers.The nongovernmental organization, Education Network Association (EdNet), has said it is ready to be an independent accrediting agency, but it has not yet accredited any institution.
Funding is an enormous problem.In this country, to save money, who will fund the work of the instruction method boards that will write the new curricula, the commissions who will license all the new programs, the purchase of library materials, the faculty time used for writing syllabi, and the printing of new study plans?

Conclusion
Although Kyrgyz educators and political figures want to synchronize Kyrgyzstan's higher education system with "the world educational space," the lack of planning, of training for faculty and administrators, of evaluation procedures, and of funding mean that the reforms are likely to be impossible to implement successfully.

Chika Sehoole
Chika Sehoole is professor of education at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.E-mail: chika.sehoole@up.ac.za.
A t the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012, South Af- rica's higher education sector made national and international news headlines.At the end of 2011, the University of Pretoria was hit by allegations of apparent racism among its staff, where a black engineering professor alleged systematic harassment and victimization, on racial grounds.At the beginning of the 2012 academic year, a black parent was killed in a stampede at the gates of the University of Johannesburg, where crowds of prospective students had gathered in the quest to get admission into this university.
These two incidents-namely, allegations of racism and the quest for access especially of black students in higher education-are just a few examples of the challenges that South Africa experiences in meeting some of the priority areas identified by the postapartheid government, in 1994.In outlining the vision of the postapartheid govern-ment, the 2001 National Plan for Higher Education noted the need to increase the number of black members of staff in higher education institutions.This was in line with the changes in the composition of the student body in those institutions.Given the paucity of postgraduate students and, consequently, the small pool of potential recruits, the government encouraged institutions also to recruit black and female staff members from the rest of the continent.The alleged victim of racism at the University of Pretoria is a Kenyan national.

Race and Institutional Cultures
There has been some progress in increasing the number of black students and staff in higher education institutions.The preliminary student headcount in 2011, for the 23 public universities, was 899,120.This number includes both full-time and part-time enrollments, both for contact and distance-education students.The figure for 1994 was 495,356.Therefore, this represents an increase of almost 82 percent since the advent of democracy.Government redress policies on access for black and female students have yielded positive results.The number of black (African, colored, and Indian) students increased from 55 percent to 80 percent.
On the other hand, the number of black staff had also increased from 17 percent in 1994 to 44 percent in 2010.Contrary to expectations, however, physical access seems not to be sufficient, although there seems to be improvements.The necessity is to find out what the experiences are of blacks who were excluded and discriminated under the apartheid system.The racial incident in 2008 at the University of Free State, where white students ill-treated black women members of the cleaning staff, and the alleged experience of the black professor at the University of Pretoria are examples that show that written policies are not sufficient to effect the desired changes.
The Soudine Committee investigated the incident at the University of the Free State.The committee's brief covered all the 23 universities.They found that racial discrimination and sexism were both pervasive in many South African universities.In this regard, a change is needed of the institutional cultures.The members of the university community will have to embrace a new way of operation and espouse new values of these institutions, in line with democratic dispensation ushered in by the Nelson Mandela administration.Studies have shown that higher education institutions largely ignored the change of institutional cultures.Historically, white institutions, in particular, are unable to recruit or retain black staff members, because their institutional culture is alienating rather than accommodating for new people.This tradition had an impact on black students' success and performance and was also an Africa Focus obstacle toward attracting black students into postgraduate research programs.A strategy to overcome this barrier was to encourage institutions to recruit academics from the rest of the African continent.This could play a significant role for providing role models for black students and helping to change institutional cultures.

Access and the Central Applications System
The unfortunate incident of the death of a parent at the gates of the University of Johannesburg also points to two important policy issues facing South Africa.The first issue relates to the management of primary applicants who want to enter universities, which at the moment is uncoordinated, nationally.The current practice is that students can apply to as many higher education institutions as possible, during their final year of high school.After the release of their grade 12 (matric) results, they are offered places at individual universities where they had applied before.Thus, a student who passed well could be offered a place to study by all the institutions (from two to four) she/he has applied to.However, the student can only take up the place at one institution.
The second issue relates to the fact that some of the students, who do not apply until they earn their grade 12 results, start looking for an available place to study at the higher education institutions, at the start of the academic year.They literally travel from one institution to another in search of a place to study.Those who did not meet the entrance requirements at their preferred institutions also start looking for alternative places of study at the beginning of the academic year.The combinations of these factors result in long queues of students lining at gates of universities, in search of a place to study.This desperation for access has unfortunately claimed a life at the beginning of 2012 in the University of Johannesburg.
Can there be no better way of managing the process of admission of students into universities?A central applications system has been proposed by government as a solution and a way of combating the recurrence of the incident of the University of Johannesburg.What is interesting to note is that this solution was proposed by the national plan, 11 years ago.The question why this has not been implemented remains a challenge for the government to address.
The stampedes and the long queues at the beginning of every academic year in institutions of higher education also point to another bigger system issue, which is the fact that the South African higher education system is operating at full capacity, and there is a need to build new institutions.Currently, the establishment of two new universities has been approved by the government, and plans are under way to start with the implementation of the policy decision.Until these universities become fully functional, the pressure of the existing institutions will remain.
There is recognition within the government that the building of additional universities will not meet the demand for access to higher education.In this regard, the government has unveiled a vision of a postschool system, which consists of public and private universities, public and private Further Education and Training colleges, and adult education centers, among others.
It is envisaged that young people will be encouraged to consider alternative forms of postschool opportunities, other than university education.With regard to meeting the needs of individuals who desire to pursue university education, within the limited resources, distance education could be considered as an alternative.
T o meet the challenges of poverty reduction and earn- ing sustainable human development, Africa does not only need to produce an even greater output of highly qualified professionals.The further necessary duty requires to produce and adapt knowledge relevant to its development, especially in science and technology.
Global research indicators, however, clearly show that Africa fares poorly, compared to other regions.Sub-Saharan Africa's contribution to the world's expenditure on research and development equals no more than 0.6 percent, At the end of 2011, the University of Pretoria was hit by allegations of apparent racism among its staff, where a black engineering professor alleged systematic harassment and victimization, on racial grounds.a significant proportion of which is contributed by just one country-South Africa.Likewise, sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest number of researchers per 1 million of the population: 79 compared to, for example, 442 for Latin America and the Caribbean.It also produced just 1.1 percent of the world's publications and 0.1 percent of global patents.Equally disturbing is that since 2002, while the research indicators in almost all world regions have improved, those of sub-Saharan Africa have remained mostly unchanged.

Networking Strategy
Promoting research must, thus, form an essential strategy for African higher education institutions.Yet, these institutions face many constraints and challenges-including a heavy emphasis on teaching, regarding massification, insufficient postgraduate programs, a dearth of researchstrong faculty, lack of laboratories and equipment, and scarcity of funds.
In the past, much of the research in individual African universities was carried out in collaboration with universities in the respective former colonizing countries, which not only provided the funding but also managed the research.Thus, research areas were not always in priority areas for Africa.The results hardly ever reached the African stakeholders, and the information was almost never shared with other African universities.Now, however, most donors and funding agencies increasingly favor research initiatives in Africa that involve regional collaboration and networking.This policy has produced the added advantage of sharing the scarce human and physical resources, among the participating institutions, and promoting capacity building.

Networking Initiatives
The African Economics and Research Consortium, established in 1988, is  The German Academic Exchange Service has assisted in creating five Centers of Excellence across Africa, in fields that are of direct societal relevance to Africa: health in Ghana, microfinance in Congo, law in Tanzania, criminal justice in South Africa, and logistics in Namibia.All these centers, anchored in the respective countries' flagship universities, aim at promoting graduate studies and research and training the future leaders of Africa.They network among themselves and with relevant institutions in Germany.
The Regional Initiative in Science and Education, funded by the Carnegie Corporation, aims to promote capacity building in sub-Saharan African universities.It runs master's degree and PhD programs for scientists and engineers through university-based research and training networks in selected disciplines.The primary emphasis constitutes preparing new faculty and upgrading the qualifications of existing faculty in African universities.
The New Partnership for Africa's Development has created a Water Centers of Excellence Consortium, which networks institutions and researchers in the field of water sciences and technology, in different regions, for graduate programs and research.The Center in Southern Africa is coordinated by Stellenbosch University, South Africa, and the one in western African by University Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal.
The Pan African University, launched by the African Union in December 2011, is a major new initiative of continental networking for promoting graduate training and research, in identified priority areas for Africa.This university will comprise five institutes, one in each of the five African regions and each specializing in a different field.Each institute will then network with other institutions in its respective field.The University of Ibadan, Nigeria, will host the Institute in Earth and Life Sciences; the University of Yaoundé II, Cameroon, the one in Governance, Humani-

Africa Focus
Promoting research must, thus, form an essential strategy for African higher education institutions.ties and Social Sciences; and the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya, in Basic Sciences, Technology and Innovation.Algeria will host an Institute in Water and Energy Sciences, and South Africa in Space Science.

Challenges
While regional and continental networking undoubtedly offers many advantages in promoting research-i.e., in helping African institutions to collaborate among themselves, it also gives rise to several challenges.First, networks must take into account the "political" will, at both institutional and country levels.Many successful networks have faltered, when changes in leadership in participating institutions or countries have occurred, and such changes are common in Africa.Second, networks invariably incur additional communication, staff, and travel costs.Greater use must be made of information and communications technology to reduce these costs.Third, the success of the network is dependent-not only on effective management at the central coordinating unit but equally at the level of the various nodes, which is not always easy to achieve.The staff undertaking the coordination at every node must be carefully selected.Fourth, almost all African networks are heavily financed by donors.It is vital to consider the long-term sustainability of a network, when donor support may run dry.A priority for every network must, therefore, be to plan, right from the start, for raising its own funds from national, regional, and international sources.
Finally, research in Africa can only flourish if there are sufficient African researchers.Steps must be taken by African countries and universities to create a dynamic environment, to attract bright, young Africans to take up research as a career and become the next generation of researchers.Africa can no longer afford to lose them for promoting research in other continents.

Liu Haifeng
Liu Haifeng is professor and director of the Institute of Education, at Xiamen University, China.E-mail: liuhf@xmu.edu.cn.
T he university entrance examination (also called Gaokao) in China is one of the earliest established systems in the world for the selection of new higher education students, through unified examinations.Each year, between June 7 and 9, millions of students take the exam at the same time.The number of participants in 2008 was the largest in history-10.5 million participants took the examination.In 2011, there were 9.33 million.Taking the entrance examination is the only channel for most students to enter colleges or universities.The examination scores can determine the candidates' chance and determine the quality and prestige of the university that they could attend.

History
Since its establishment in 1952, an entrance examination is not only a pivot between institutions of higher education and schools of secondary education but also a key link between higher education institutions and society.Thus, this policy has always been an important aspect of education reform in China and a focal point of concern for the entire education circle and the whole society.
The Great Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966.In the cultural and educational circles, abolishing the entrance examination was taken as a breakthrough for the movement and colleges, and universities ceased to enroll new students for a number of years.From 1972 to 1976, the recommendation method was adopted in university recruitment, and only those youths who had practical experiences were entitled to higher education.In student recommendation, priority was given to candidates' performance at work and not to their academic accomplishments.
After an interval of 11 years, the restoration of the entrance examination in 1977 filled tens of thousands of educated youths with exultation.In 1977, when the entrance examination was reintroduced, the examinations and recruitment were conduced by provincial, municipal, or regional governments.In 1978, the model of the national unified examination and locally organized recruitment was restored.More than 30 years after that, a series of reforms have been initiated and key measures among them.
A further direction of reform is to change the present practice of measuring students of different abilities with a unified examination that has the same requirements.One In the past, much of the research in individual African universities was carried out in collaboration with universities in the respective former colonizing countries.
of the schemes being discussed sees a distinction between regular undergraduate colleges and universities or key universities, on the one hand, and junior colleges on the other.Applicants to the former type of schools take national unified examinations, which may include contents outside the secondary school syllabuses.Examinations focus more on the measurement of students' ability, while those who apply to the latter type of schools take examinations based entirely on secondary school teaching syllabuses.In addition, there will be more improvements in the format of examinations.

New Development From 2010
In July 2010, Chinese government promulgated the National Medium and Long-Term Educational Reform and Development Plan, in which chapter 12 is about the "examination and enrollment system reform."Among previous educational reform profiles in China, this is the first time that examination and enrollment became an independent chapter.This shows that the government pays high attention to this issue.In that chapter, the government suggests that "National Education Examination Steering Committee should be established to study how to set up the examination reform program and to guide the reform of university entrance examination practice."This decision indicates the great importance of the the examination and enrollment reforms.

Positive and Negative Consequences
The entrance examination improves the selection of qualified individuals for universities, to ensure the quality of freshmen.It also promotes the teaching and learning at the secondary and elementary level.Tests provide an opportunity for examinees to wholly depend on themselves, and successes are also under their control.That feeling of control motivates millions of young people to study hard; and thus, the general level of intellectual ability of the whole nation is increased, and education is also revitalized.Promoting equity is the soul of the testing, and "fairness, equality, and transparency" are the central notions of China's testing policy.Testing also promotes hierarchical mobility, to a large extent.It has been a key channel for students in the rural areas to gain residency in urban areas.Ever since Gaokao was resumed in 1977, it made great contribution in the selection of qualified individuals for higher education, and many of those people are playing important roles in every sector of the society.The fast economic growth in the recent 20 years in China is also partly attributable to the resumption and reforms of the entrance examination.
However, this unified national admissions test also results in some negative consequences to elementary and secondary education.High schools focus their attention on college admissions rate.Students are dedicated to either science or liberal arts, while completely ignoring the other field since it will not be tested on the entrance examination.Academic pressures are too high, and workload is too heavy for students.Students' physical health is significantly impaired, and there is a constant increase in the proportion of people suffering from myopia.Students are also confined to certain thinking modes, and their individual creativity is largely suppressed.Similar things happen at the school level: Schools become more similar to each other with academic studies, for higher test scores being the sole and whole purpose of teaching and learning.The practice of "teaching to the test" is prevalent for Gaokao: Tested subjects and contents are the focus, while the untested subjects and contents are completely ignored.This has already resulted in narrowed perspectives of students and concentrated efforts in the examinations, with the only purpose of seeking fame and wealth out of the practice.The intended goal of high school education is greatly distorted.The entrance examination system has its advantages and disadvantages.It is still one of the most important and core issues in Chinese education reform.

Importance and Future
An admissions system that basically depends on the test score, as judging criterion, demonstrates a trend beyond

China Perspectives
Since its establishment in 1952, an entrance examination is not only a pivot between institutions of higher education and schools of secondary education but also a key link between higher education institutions and society.
With no change on Chinese people's perspective and emphasis on education, the system will not receive a decrease in the severity of competition in those university admissions tests, regardless of an increase in the admissions rate.China Perspectives the maneuver of any person.In theory, it is not the optimal selection tool; but in practice, no better substitute is available for competition.If this important decision role is not played by test scores, then power, money, or connections would substitute test scores and become the key components in deciding the admissions status.Thus, a unified test seems an effective tool, to ensure fair competition and competition orders.It is a system compatible with the social and cultural contexts of China, certainly needs constant improvements and reforms, but is not suitable to eliminate it.
It has attracted even greater attention when the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of large-scale selective examination have become fully exposed.It should be revealed that the nationally unified examination does cause some negative impacts on education at the elementary and secondary level, but it also should be noted as protecting admissions decisions from the intervention of many other factors, such as connections among people.Despite the negative consequences, which calls for reforms, the elimination of tests is not a right answer for education in China.In general, the examination and enrollment system in China has been existing for 60 years; and although it needs continuous reform, it suits the Chinese situation and will last for a long time.
With no change on Chinese people's perspective and emphasis on education, the system will not receive a decrease in the severity of competition in those university admissions tests, regardless of an increase in the admissions rate.China has been trying to modify the practice of wholly depending on a standardized test.For example, universities have sought different kinds of recommendation systems, but all of the options fell short of their goals due to the intervention of connections.Only through the nationally unified standardized testing can the admissions practice be protected from the contamination of connections.The university entrance examination system in China is definitely going to be more diverse; however, considering the society situation and traditional culture in China, it will remain the main channel for university entrance, for a long period.

Liberal Arts Education in the Chinese Perspective
You Guo Jiang, S.J.
You Guo Jiang, S.J., is a PhD candidate at the Center for International Higher Education, Boston College.E-mail: jiangyf@bc.edu.
I n China, there has been a revival of interest and new thinking about liberal arts education, in the past decade.This revival, in part, shows that the government and universities realize the influence of educating citizens to think creatively, critically, and innovatively-to help students meet global needs and challenges.It also indicates that current curricula focus too much on professional training.
The model of specialized training has been increasingly criticized over the past 20 years.Most Chinese students view education primarily as a means of securing good jobs, high salary, and mobility.The pursuit of humanistic values and personal and academic integrity is eroded by utilitarianism and money-oriented commercialism.Many college graduates lack the capacity for critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, and innovation and moral reasoning.Chinese policymakers and educators are aware of the challenges that universities now face and think that a liberal arts education will produce college graduates, with the requisite moral and critical skills.

The Development of Liberal Arts Education
In 1998, the Ministry of Education issued the Outline of Cultural Quality Education for University Students, which focused on the cultivation of humanistic qualities.This outline is at an early stage and poorly articulated, with respect to career paths.In the past decade, some small-scale experimental faculties of liberal arts education began to appear at top universities-to meet the goal of educating students in critical thinking, creativity, integrity, and innovative skills.Leading research universities-such as, Peking University, Zhejiang University, Fudan University, Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, and Zhongshan University-are the pioneer institutions that promote a liberal arts education college or programs to improve students' capacity for critical thinking and broad analysis.
In Other universities at the national and provincial level also developed additional courses in the liberal arts as elective courses, which were commonly called "public courses for humanistic education or cultural quality education."Some specialized institutes of technology and engineering and Normal Universities-for example, in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Beijing Institute of Technology, and East China Normal University-have also implemented the liberal arts.The liberal arts education curriculum includes courses in political, moral, and physical education, as well as foreign languages, social sciences, literature, history, philosophy, arts, and military training.Liberal arts education has thus become a landmark in the development and transformation of Chinese higher education, to cultivate more well-rounded students.Challenges face liberal arts education in China.
The Chinese higher education system has recognized the importance of shifting from specialized education to educating graduates to be creative and competitive in a globalized world.However, pressure from exam-oriented education and a lecture-style teaching method impedes faculty and university administrators from wholeheartedly embracing liberal arts education.Relatively narrow professional studies still dominate the curricula of most Chinese colleges and universities.In addition, course requirements are extremely tight and, therefore, leave no room for reflection or thinking.
Despite the educational aim of nurturing students for critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving skills through a liberal arts education-the evaluation system for faculty promotion, ranking, and awards focuses more on publication than on teaching.This is a real obstacle to achieve the cited goals.Every teacher, administrator, and policymaker describes a liberal arts education as a wonderful thing, but places many barriers to putting it into practice.
The contemporary Chinese secondary system usually divides its curriculum into the humanities and science.Thus, university students tend to select liberal arts courses related to their high school interests.High school students spend most of their time learning how to get high scores on China's national college entrance examination.Thus, most Chinese high school students become excellent memoriz-ers, without knowing anything about teamwork, class presentation, problem solving, creativity, and innovative thinking.
Lecturing and memorization have dominated past approaches.Examination papers are based mostly on lecture content and textbook.Students are not encouraged to think creatively or to reflect and interact with teachers.Many students eventually either lose the ability to think independently or are afraid to offer criticism.
Advancing China to the world-class stage through science and technology has become a central concern and goal of the Chinese government and the entire nation.Many universities are rushing to embrace globalization and internationalization in order to keep in line with world development.As a result, liberal arts education is considered unimportant.

Future Trends
Despite the lack of institutional autonomy, the low regard for humanism, and the preponderance of materialism and utilitarianism in educational goals, Chinese higher education reform has revived liberal arts education in some elite places and universities-to educate more students with critical thinking, creativity, innovative skills, and balanced development.Government policy, the education system, the engagement of faculty members, and market demands will continue to have an impact in implementing liberal arts education.Some universities in China have already started programs in the liberal arts, as a means or pilot experiment to prepare students for responsible, innovative, and creative lives, in a global world.The Chinese education system, education institutions, and faculty members still have a long way to go, if they are to embrace and practice the liberal arts education.Despite the emergence of liberal arts education in China as a new phenomenon, this has not had a critical impact on the approach to higher education.Nor has a liberal arts education become a revolutionary force in Chinese higher education.Thus, the expansion of the liberal arts education in the Chinese education system is still in its infancy.

China Perspectives
Most Chinese students view education primarily as a means of securing good jobs, high salary, and mobility.
The contemporary Chinese secondary system usually divides its curriculum into the humanities and science.

MICHAEL SHATTOCK
Michael Shattock is a visiting professor at the Centre for Higher Education Studies, Institute of Education, University of London.E-mail: M.Shattock@ioe.ac.uk.
I n 2004, when the UK prime minister, Tony Blair, won a Parliamentary majority of only five votes, to introduce "top up" tuition fees-covered by income contingent loans, to be introduced in 2006-such a radical approach was thought to remain in force for a long time.Two caveats to the new fee structure (not in Scotland) were accepted.The first stipulates agreeing to establish a nonstatutory Office of Fair Access, which would require universities to submit access plans and would approve schemes-whereby universities used part of the new fee income to fund bursaries to support students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.The second itemizes promising to set up an independent commission, to examine the operation of the new fee regime after three years.The clear expectation was that institutions would vary their fees, according to their position in the market place, and that the introduction of the new fees, even though supported by loans, would deter some students.Neither expectation was realized: All but two institutions charged the full £3,000 fee and there was no diminution in the student application rate.Indeed, some universities found themselves unable to spend the amount they had put aside for bursaries.

The Browne Review
The idea behind the independent commission was primarily to provide a report back to Parliament on whether the interests of disadvantaged students had been safeguarded.The government appointed Lord Browne, former chief executive officer of BP, to chair the commission, which reported in 2010 the Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education.The Browne review recommended that no limit should be placed on fees and that controls on student numbers, which has been a feature of UK higher education since the 1980s, should be abandoned.Fees would be repayable against an interest rate fixed at the government's rate of borrowing.Yet, a graduated institutional levy would be introduced on any fees above £,6,000, so that, for example, 75 percent of any fee above £12,000 would be paid by the institution to the government.This plan was intended to serve as a discouragement to charging high fees, which it seemed some universities might wish to do.On the other hand, Browne argued that market competition raised quality.
However, Browne reported in the teeth of the economic crisis when a new coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had set itself to reduce public expenditure by 25 percent over three years.All government expenditure was subjected to a Comprehensive Spending Review, which imposed a 40 percent cut on higher education as a whole; and, in particular, an 80 percent cut on institutions' teaching grant, which was to be replaced by tuition fees.The Browne proposals for open-ended fee charges and for the removal of limits on student numbers were rejected and a tuition fee cap of £9,000 was announced.However, some public funds would be used to support courses of strategic importance (i.e., science, technology, and medicine).It remains unclear whether these decisions reflected an act of policy, building on 2004 policies, or an accidental outcome of seeking to protect another part of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills' (the responsible government department) budget.The decision was certainly difficult for the Liberal Democrat side of the coalition government that had entered the general election promising to remove fees altogether, each individual Lib Dem candidate being forced to sign a "Pledge" to do so.However, from its point of view the Treasury promised to make a long-term contribution to reducing public expenditure.

The White Paper
The rationale, post hoc or otherwise and the final shape of these decisions was provided by a government white paper (Higher Education: Students at the Heart of the System) in 2011: £9,000 was to be the maximum that institutions could charge for a tuition fee to home students; but institutions planning to charge more than £6,000 must convince the Office of Fair Access that they had in place secure and realistic access policies before they could exceed that figure.The student number target was frozen to protect the Treasury from an open-ended loan commitment; but

Countries and Regions
The Browne review recommended that no limit should be placed on fees and that controls on student numbers, which has been a feature of UK higher education since the 1980s, should be abandoned.

Countries and Regions
to introduce flexibility and competition a pool of 85,000 places would be withdrawn from the present funded total of student places to allow unrestrained recruitment against 65,000 places from students scoring AAB and above in their General Certificate of Education A level examination-thus, A's in maths and physics and a B in chemistry would put a student into that category.Up to 20,000 other places would also be withdrawn for universities and colleges charging at or below £7,500-and therefore likely to be places to be filled in widening participation programs.This "margin and core" approach was clearly intended to favor universities attracting the best-qualified students (they were also generally the most research-orientated institutions) over those that drew their student body from a much-less, well-qualified field.Graduates would only become eligible to begin repaying the loans if they earned £21,000, and the repayment period would be 30 years.In addition, maintenance grants were also covered by loans, so that final repayment was for fees and maintenance combined.
By July 2011 the majority of institutions indicated an intention to charge fees within £1,000 of the maximum fee figure, with an average of £8,500 emerging.This was £1,000 higher than the Treasury had anticipated and immediately placed the forecast cost of the scheme in jeopardy.Since then, 25 institutions have lowered their fees in order to gain access to the 20,000 additional places, where high-level qualifications are not required.The new fee proposals were widely predicted as likely to deter applications, particularly from students from disadvantaged backgrounds; but the latest figures show only a minor fall.Mature applicants would be the least likely to have to pay back the full loan, because they might leave the workforce before the 30-year expiry date of the debt period.

The Policy Rationale
Four main strands of thinking seem to have gone into this set of decisions.First, a significant element of public expenditure has been removed.Although most commentators foresee that the scheme will increase public expenditure in the short run, much will depend on the Treasury's ability to sell on the loan portfolio to private finance houses.
Second, the plan will increase competition and, thus, in New Public Management terms, efficiency.Third, the existence of an intensified market will drive up the quality of academic programs (the government white paper demands an immensely detailed presentation of market information by each institution, to improve the effectiveness of the market).Fourth, the plan seeks to enforce a greater differentiation of the system by fee levels and entry qualifications.One further intention and one that was much trumpeted, was to place private institutions on the same legal footing as public universities, as far as eligibility for funding.The private sector is tiny by comparison with the public sector of higher education, but organizations like Apollo have obtained a foothold in the system.This has been vitiated by the government's decision not to embody the changes in legislationfor fear, it is alleged, that they might be unpicked in the process of Parliamentary scrutiny.This leaves the funding council's powers unchanged even though its funding remit is now much diminished.In addition, the Office of Fair Access is denied the legal powers it requires to enforce a decision to deny a university the ability to charge the maximum fee-whether or not it can satisfy the office, in regard to its access arrangements.

The Impact
It is too early to say what the ultimate impact of these changes will be, but some tentative conclusions can be offered.The new scheme is essentially a graduate tax, which assumes that higher education is a private rather than a public good-thus, reversing a perception that has held force since 1945.The strong universities, which can attract entries of highly qualified students with entries, will be strengthened.The less strong universities, with weaker recruitment, may struggle, but the evidence so far does not suggest that any will actually go out of business as a result of the changes.One fear, however, that the redistribution of additional places would permit new entrants to the market at lower prices has been realized by the decision to allocate 10,000 of the 20,000 places to further education colleges, which all bid for numbers at fee levels of £6,000 or below-thus removing these students from the university sector.This decision was heavily influenced by the Treasury's wish to reduce the borrowing costs caused by so many high fee institutions.This policy has involved a transfer of places from large post-1992 institutions to what in the United States would be called the community college sector.
The effect of these changes is combined with a further concentration of research funding.The Times Higher Education has calculated that in the 2012-2013 allocation, the Russell Group of research universities has received an increase of 1.5 percent while the Million Plus and Guild HE Groups of teaching-focused universities have lost between 10 per-Graduates would only become eligible to begin repaying the loans if they earned £21,000, and the repayment period would be 30 years.cent and 16 percent; this trend may increase inequalities in the system if the "core and margin" approach persists.The contention that competition and a greater reliance on markets improve quality in higher education is widely disputed, and the danger is that the system will become more polarized than it is now.The wider danger is that the planning of higher education in the future may owe more to fluctuations in interest rates, the Treasury's borrowing powers, and the operation of money markets.Thus, in the transfer of student places to cheaper institutions (described above), rather than to educational needs and the pressure of student demand, the Treasury, rather than students, may turn out to be the real "heart of the system." Chile: Improving Access and Quality to Stop Social Unrest

Ernesto Schiefelbein
Ernesto Schiefelbein is research fellow at the Universidad Autonoma de Chile.E-mail: pschiefe@gmail.com.
I n 2011, highly unequal income and educational opportu- nities triggered street demonstrations in Chile and replications in several Latin American countries.Now, Chileans want to stop civil unrest, to avoid a negative impact on its remarkable gross domestic product per capita growth rate (4% per year in 2000-2011) and on the ongoing progress to the reduction of poverty (from 38% in 1990 to 15% in 2009).At the beginning of 2012, polls showed a majority supporting the design of strategies to reduce social inequality and gaps in education.Fortunately, helping students to read one or two pages in their leisure time, in order to be prepared for active engagement in class, has reduced learning gaps and increased promotion rates in pilot trials.If results are confirmed in a next large-scale trial, this strategy could help in restraining further demonstrations and provide a model for a number of Latin American countries facing similar problems.

Students' Demonstrations From 2011 to the Present
In May 2011, Chilean university students took to the streets to demand reform of the education system.They asked for a fair student-loan scheme and access to quality education for everyone.When the school year ended in December, there was no sign of settling the most serious confrontation with students over the past two decades in Latin America.
The top 40 percent of each age-group cohort now has access to higher education.Even though this is an impressive achievement, most of these students belong to the upper half of the socioeconomic distribution (households having an average income over US$20,000).However, two-thirds of these families have difficulties financing the annual cost of higher education (ranging from US$5,000 to 10,000, per student).Financing education is especially difficult for middle social class families with more than one child, because they do not have access to affordable student loans.
Money is needed to pay for further education after high school, but previous knowledge and skills to learn new knowledge are also required to be admitted to higher education, in order for students to stay enrolled and to graduate.Being a good student in a public high school does not guarantee access to higher education.As an example, the valedictorian of a marginal urban public high school, with a high school grade average of 95 percent, only achieved 423 points in the 2011 University Selection Test-below the minimum of 450 points required to enroll at a university.Graduates from public high schools often do not have the capacity to learn university-level material.They have not reached the necessary level of intellectual development, and remedial courses cannot close this gap.These students require more individualized teaching; but this teaching cannot be provided, given the large size of classes and the lack of faculty experience with cooperative and interactive pedagogy.Therefore, only one of three admitted students eventually graduate in Chile, whereas the comparable ratio is 8:1 for Argentina and 2:1 for Colombia.

Closing the Gap
The need for remedial courses in college is not unusual, but in the United States students can take remedial courses that do not count toward a degree-just delay the time to degree.A recent report found that only one-third of US students leave high school academically prepared for college (one-sixth of Hispanic students).Some studies state that as many as 40 percent of college students will take at least one remedial course.

In 2011, highly unequal income and educational opportunities triggered street demonstrations in Chile and replications in several Latin American countries. Countries and Regions
However, in Latin America and other developing countries, university study involves the pursuit of professional degrees-such as in law, medicine, architecture, or engineering-without room in the schedule for general study or remedial work.Given that all students follow the same rigid degree program, remedial courses do not fit into schedule unless the whole first semester is allocated to them.Fortunately, systematic help has been effective for students to gain preparation for increased engagement in each class.This is the objective of the innovation now being introduced at the first semester of Universidad Autonoma de Chile.The essential components are: (1) a clear outline and summary of topics to be covered in each class, distributed during (or before) the first class session; (2) specific text, assigned for each class (starting with less than 1,000 words in the first semester, given that students are not used to extensive reading assignments), covering the basic knowledge (definitions, concepts, or basic data) in advance in order to derive maximum benefit from the class; (3) start each class with an oral factual (literal) question to one student (selected at random) and assign a mark for the response to the question (as a sort of scaffolding to create the habit of reading in advance); (4) request students (immediately after the oral quiz) to ask their questions (about what they read beforehand) or to read a passage that they did not understand (an interesting discussion usually flows from their questions); (5) use the rest of the class time to deliver the lesson as the teacher prefers; and (6) provide the usual references for additional reading, after class.
Even if students do not know the exact answer (to the oral question) but can demonstrate that they read the material, they still receive 60 percent credit for answering the question.Pilot trials have shown that since the students know exactly what and how to study, it is easier for them to review the material in a productive way.They soon decide what areas they need to focus on (for example, vocabulary or meaning).This kind of freedom fosters autonomy in students and gives them responsibility for their own learning.
Faculty participating in pilot experiences has reported increased participation in class, and students polled responded that previous reading improved their learning.
Therefore, it was decided to start large-scale implementation in March 2012.Syllabus and materials for the 156 courses (offered in the first semester in 26 programs) were already available on the university Web site for new students enrolled, in January 2012.Deans, program directors, and professors have participated in three practical seminars.Hopefully, this innovation will drastically reduce the number of traditional lectures and will prompt improved learning experiences.
To limit confusion, only a few key changes will be implemented in each semester.Samples of incoming students in each first semester course will be reporting day-by-day (during the first three weeks) about the way the class starts (oral question and grading the response).Later on, program directors will talk with professors who forget to implement such a key change.The innovation will be implemented in ensuing semesters, with a similar sequence.
The impact of this strategy will be carefully evaluated at the end of June 2012.It is hoped that the rest of Chilean universities will take advantage if proven successful.Throughout Latin America, university first-year dropout rates average at 50 percent.It is estimated that about onethird of the 10 million underachieving Latin American university students (lacking required skills and knowledge) could also benefit from this low-cost treatment and keep moving forward in their academic careers.
Faculty participating in pilot experiences has reported increased participation in class, and students polled responded that previous reading improved their learning.
Being a good student in a public high school does not guarantee access to higher education.
In addition to our Web site and Facebook page, we are now tweeting.We hope you will consider "following" us on Twitter!Departments The Center will experience significant change in the coming months.Dr. Liz Reisberg, who has been associated with the Center for the past several years as research associate, will be leaving the Center in May.She will pursue consulting opportunities and will continue to lead the Center's blog on the Inside Higher Education Web site.Reisberg has provided valuable service and leadership in key areas, including developing our Web presence, including our Facebook and Twitter presence, coordinating several of our major research projects, and providing general leadership to many of the Center's activities over the past several years.
Dr. Laura E. Rumbley will join the Center in the summer as associate director in the fall.Laura Rumbley was on the Center's staff earlier and for the past two years has been associate director of the Academic Cooperation Association, based in Brussels, Belgium.
Iván F. Pacheco will complete his doctoral dissertation this summer and will conclude his work as research assistant.Yukiko Shimmi and David Stanfield will continue as research assistants for the 2012/13 academic year.Yukiko Shimmi presented her research at the national conference of the Comparative and International Education Society in Puerto Rico in April.Shimmi has been assuming a larger role in managing the Center's Web presence, where she has created a new Twitter page for the International Network for Higher Education in Africa@BC_INHEA.
Philip G. Altbach and Liz Reisberg participated in the international conference on higher education sponsored by the Ministry of Higher Education of Saudi Arabia, held in Riyadh.They are both members of the planning committee responsible where they collaborate with the Ministry of Higher Education on the development of this annual event.Altbach also participated in an advisory committee meeting at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, to review their strategic plan.Altbach will also attend the international advisory board meeting of the National Research University-Higher School of Economics in Moscow in June and will give a paper at a conference on the academic profession in Berlin.He will participate in a leadership conference in Brazil, organized by Liz Reisberg in collaboration with the University of Campinas.
Paying the Professoriate: A Global Comparison of Compensation and Contracts, the result of the Center's successful research collaboration with the Laboratory for Institutional Analysis at the National Research University-Higher School of Economics in Moscow, was published by Routledge in April.It continues to attract considerable interest in the media, including articles in the New York Times, Inside Higher Education, Times Higher Education, and major newspapers in China, India, Italy, and other countries.
The Road to Academic Excellence: The Making of World-Class Research Universities, coedited by Philip G. Altbach and Jamil Salmi and published in 2011 by the World Bank, has also been published in a Chinese translated edition.It will soon appear in Spanish, Korean, Turkish, and Russian.
The Center is working with the National Research University-Higher school of Economics in Moscow on a new research project that focuses on the career opportunities and working conditions of new faculty members.Case studies from 10 countries will be included.
Finally, the Center is taking fuller advantage of the electronic distribution of information, not only with an improved format for each new issue of International Higher Education, but with an additional occasional newsletter with information about activities and initiatives at the Center and elsewhere.If you are not receiving this, but would like to be included, please contact: highered@bc.edu.

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You will find news items from the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, University World News, Times Higher Education, the Guardian Higher Education network UK, the Times of India, the Korea Times, just to name a few.We also include pertinent items from blogs and other online resources.We will also announce international and comparative reports and relevant new publications.
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The different sections of the Center Web site support the work of scholars and professionals in international higher education, with links to key resources in the field.All issues of International Higher Education are available online, with a searchable archive.In addition, the International Higher Education Clearinghouse (IHEC) is a source of articles, reports, trends, databases, online newsletters, announcements of upcoming international conferences, links to professional associations, and resources on developments in the Bologna process and the GATS.The Higher Education Corruption Monitor provides information from sources around the world, including a selection of news articles, a bibliography, and links to other agencies.The International Network for Higher Education in Africa (INHEA) is an information clearinghouse on research, development, and advocacy activities related to postsecondary education in Africa.

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The Center is closely related to the graduate program in higher education at Boston College.The program offers master's and doctoral degrees that feature a social science-based approach to the study of higher education.The Administrative Fellows initiative provides financial assistance as well as work experience in a variety of administrative settings.Specializations are offered in higher education administration, student affairs and development, and international education.For additional information, please contact Dr. Karen Arnold (arnoldk@bc.edu)or visit our Web site: http://www.bc.edu/schools/lsoe/.
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2005, Fudan University established Fudan College, an institution to implement liberal arts education and to manage the teaching of freshmen and sophomores.Since 2006, Tsinghua University has defined its undergraduate education, on the basis of a liberal arts education for a broader professional education.Nanjing University established Kuang Yaming College in 2006; Peking University initiated its Yuanpei College in 2007; and Zhongshan In addition to our Web site and Facebook page, we are now tweeting.We hope you will consider "following" us on Twitter!University established the Liberal Arts College in 2009.
a network of 27 universities and 15 national, economic-policy research institutes/centers.It promotes collaborative research and graduate training in economics, to overcome the limited capacity in individual member universities.It has been running a master's program almost since its inception; and from 2002, it launched a collaborative PhD program in four African universities, supporting 21 candidates each year.The Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa, launched in 2010 with funding from the Carnegie Corporation, comprises 9 universities and 4 research institutes in Africa and selected partners in the North.The objective promotes doctoral training, especially in areas related to health and development, and strengthens the research infrastructure and capacity of the African institutions, through fellowships and training seminars.The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture, created in 2004 and based in Uganda, is a consortium of 29 universities in eastern, central, and southern Africa.The main goal undertakes fostering research and innovation in African universities-in response to the demand of farmers through graduate training and research.It runs several collaborative master's degree and PhD programs.