Beerkens' Blog

Moving the Blog. Change bookmarks and feeds!

2007-07-07T19:07:00.000+10:00

What better moment than at 07:07 PM of the day 07-07-07 to change things... And here is the result.

I have changed my blog software from Blogger to Wordpress. Just makes things easier and more flexible. I have also taken the opportunity to make some cosmetic changes and to adopt a 'new' name.

The change in software also leads to a change in a few URLs.:

The URLs http://blog.beerkens.info or http://www.beerkens.info/blog should still work. Only if you have bookmarked this site with a .htm or .html extension you will have to change your bookmarks.

The URLs [http://blog.beerkens.info/index.html] and [http://www.beerkens.info/blog/index.html] will no longer work but [http://blog.beerkens.info/index.php] and [http://www.beerkens.info/blog/index.php] will!

If you have subscribed to the site, you will have to resubscribe through this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BeerkensBlog

All archives have been moved to the new site and software. The old archives (with a .html extension) will be available for a while but will be removed eventually.

Enjoy!

UNSW Asia: the conjuncture of events

2007-07-04T20:11:00.000+10:00

Fred Hilmer, Vice-Chancellor of the University of New South Wales, looks back on the UNSW Asia debacle. One of the question that I asked in my post immediately after UNSW's announcement was about the real reason for UNSW's sudden departure. Much news has been reported since, but none of the explanations can fully explain it. Hilmer points to the low enrollment numbers as the reason and the fact that the Singapore Economic Development Board wasn't willing to accept their rescue plan.

Today it was also reported that high fees led to the fall of the Singapore Campus. This has been said by many others but it can't be a sufficient reason. Other senior academics at UNSW Asia blamed a lack of marketing for its demise. Sure, this might be part of the explanation as well. Simon Marginson of the University of Melbourne University explained that the business plan was plain bad and based on too rosy a set of enrollment projections.

I think we have to conclude that there is not one single reason for UNSW's pull-out. It is more a concurrence of circumstances that led to a major fiasco. But why hasn't this been foreseen by a big professional organisation like UNSW? Hilmer basically inherited the whole situation and the only thing he could be blamed for is for opening the campus at all at the start of this year. The establishment of the UNSW Asia campus of course goes further back in time. At least until 2003.

It is interesting to see that the whole development of the UNSW Asia idea has coincided with a period of rather instable governance. For a period of ten years the university was under the energetic leadership of John Niland. Niland has a good relation with Singapore and extensive knowledge about the region. He is currently Member of the Board of Trustees of the Singapore Management University. However, keeping in mind that UNSW was only approached by EDB in 2003 to consider setting up a campus in Singapore, it is unlikely that Niland was involved as a VC.

This means that the whole process, from EDB invitation to the closure in May 2007, took place in no more than 4 years. In these 4 years however, the UNSW has had 3 Vice-Chancellors! The first contacts with EDB have been with Rory Hume, now Provost at the University of California. Hume became VC in 2002 and resigned in 2004, because of the way he handled a case of academic misconduct in the university. Hume's successor was Mark Wainwright who held the VC Office from July 2004 until his retirement in June 2006. This must have been the period where the main negotiations with the EDB have taken place and where the plans for the campus were formed. It was under Wainwright that UNSW Asia was officially launched, that Greg Whittred was appointed president of UNSW Asia and two deputy presidents were announced.

So in 2006 Fred Hilmer left his position as CEO of John Fairfax Holdings and became VC of UNSW. When he came into office, UNSW Asia basically was a 'fait accompli'. Hilmer has never been a true believer in the Singapore venture, but he did not really have the option to pull out since all agreements were made and everyone was set to go. The Singaporean Straight Times (26 May, 2007) reported that 'the death knell for the Singapore campus was sounded the very week that Prof Hilmer took over on June 19, 2006'. He pulled out eventually because financial risks would steeply rise with the construction of a city campus in 2008.

A leading actor in the whole saga - and the one that actually signed the MOU with the EDB in April 2004 - is Former Deputy VC for International & Development, John Ingleson. He held this position since 2001 and was also CEO of the international education, training and consultancy arm of UNSW, New South Global. While he was an outspoken advocate of UNSW Asia - and of global academe in general - he seems to be the most silent factor in its aftermath.

Ingleson left UNSW after vice-chancellor Fred Hilmer restructured the university's top level a year ago. He is now Deputy VC I & D at the University of Western Sydney and also member of the Board of Directors of IDP (a company offering student recruiting and testing services and is part-owned by the Australian universities). The same company also undertook a program-level marketing research for UNSW Asia and was the exclusive recruiter of international students for UNSW Asia.

My two cents? A bad business plan, pursued by an over-enthusiastic DVC who overestimated economic opportunities and underestimated risks in the global higher education market. While there were plenty of reasons to slow down the development of UNSW Asia and the individuals pushing it, this never happened because clear and stable leadership at the very top was lacking at that time. By the time Hilmer inherited the situation, it was a done deal. He tried to make a deal with the Singaporeans but they didn't bite. Option 1: run the risk of even higher costs because of the construction of a campus; Option 2: get out, now costs are still bearable. May 23...Press conference...option 2...closed.

'competitive' salaries in academia

2007-07-04T12:04:00.000+10:00

In both the Netherlands and Australia the salaries of the top university leaders lead to controversy. The Australian reports that all but one of the leaders of Australia�s Group of 8 Universities earn more than 600,000 Australian Dollars (378,000 Euros). Top earner was John Hay of the University of Queensland with 655,000 Euros. But the Australian found even higher figures for La Trobe University where someone (probably the former VC) received over 930,000 Euros!

In the Netherlands, the salaries and bonuses in the public sector are a hot issue as well. Many claim that the Prime Minister�s salary should be the norm for others in the public sector. In the Netherlands that is a mere 171,000 Euros (John Howard�s salary was recently increased to 208,000 Euros). But most university leaders in the Netherlands make significantly more than that.

The new Dutch Minister for Education this week showed his discontent about the managerialism in education and the accompanying rise in salaries. He observes that most of them enjoyed enormous salary increases when they came into their current positions. And I am sure he is right about that (although that is not the case for all of them). One of the most visible cases has been the one in my own Alma Mater. Their top level managers were given a 31% salary increase, which sparked a reaction of the Minister claiming that this was �unbelievable�. This increase brought the salary of the Chairman of the Executive Board (more or less the CEO of the University) to 171,000 Euros. In comparison, the lowest earning VC in Australia, David Battersby of the University of Balarat (poor guy), earned over 200,000 Euros!

So how do the Dutch university CEOs compare with the Australian Vice-Chancellors? Basically, compared to Australia, the Dutch salaries are still very modest. Here is the list of the top 6 for both countries:

Netherlands (Source: Intermediair (pdf); in Euros)
1. Aalt Dijkhuizen	University of Wageningen	307,520
2. Sijbolt Noorda	University of Amsterdam	284,400
3. Rene Smit	Vrije Universiteit	245,900
4. Hands van Luijk	Delft Univ. of Technology	240,000
5. Yvonne van Rooy	University of Utrecht	233,000
6. Jos Elbers	Hogeschool Inholland	228,928
Australia (Source: The Australian; converted to Euros)
1. John Hay	University of Queensland	655,000
2. Gavin Brown	University of Sydney	454,000
3. Fred Hilmer	University of NSW	378,000 (+95,000)
4. Steven Schwartz	Macquarie University	378,000 (+63,000)
5. John Rickard	Central Queensland Univ.	425,000 - 434,500
6. Glyn Davis	Melbourne University	384,000

Don�t get me wrong! This is no justification for the Dutch salary hikes. More like a condemnation of the Australian salaries. The argument is usually that salaries have to be competitive. This argument is put forward just a bit more often when people talk about managers than when they talk about academics and professors. Australian professorial salaries average A$120,000 (75,600 Euros). I am not sure how much it is in the Netherlands but I think it will be slightly higher, or at least similar. Let�s just say that the huge gap between managerial and academic salaries in Australia better not be taken as an example for the Netherlands.

Meanwhile in Malaysia...

2007-06-30T20:49:00.000+10:00

Meanwhile in Malaysia, 'soft authoritarianism' seems to get tougher. Elections are coming up and since the Malaysian people are not yet ready for open dialogue, voices have to be silenced. So what do you do? First you silence the blogs that cause 'disharmony'. That should be enough since - as Marina Mahathir (yes, the outspoken daughter of...) shows - the government has nothing to fear from the regular Malaysian media.

But it was not enough. This news by rising politician Tony Pua should really worry Malaysians. Apparently, instructions were given by some government commission to the various TV stations in Malaysia to ban all footage of opposition leaders. Although this was denied by some TV stations, Malaysiakini published the proof, black on white.

Now...who isn't ready for an open dialogue?

Higher Education Funding in Indonesia

2007-06-30T19:55:00.001+10:00

The Jakarta Post reported that the Indonesian Director General for Higher Education, Satryo Soemantri Brodjonegoro would increase the subsidies for universities. The government would disburse a Rp 13.5 trillion (US$1.5 billion) fund next year to subsidize costs at state-run and private universities. Good news for Indonesian higher education? Of course, every extra dollar or rupiah is welcome. But...

He admitted that the increase would not cover education costs for university students. "The amount is too small to meet the demands of poor families who want to have access to higher education," he said. In recent years the government has decreased its subsidies for state-run universities and encouraged them to find their own funding sources. As a result, some state-run universities began offering courses for exorbitant fees.

Starting from 2000, Indonesia�s leading four institutions have � in financial terms � basically been privatised. Institut Teknologi Bandung, Institut Pertanian Bogor, Universitas Indonesia and Universitas Gadjah Mada received the so-called BHMN status (Badan Hukum Milik Negara or �state owned legal entities�). The other public universities in Indonesia are meant to follow this path in the future. Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) received the status in 2003, followed by the Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI) in early 2004. BHMN meant greater autonomy and autonomy was necessary because the universities, under the Suharto regime, suffered from a serious lack of academic freedom. But autonomy did not just mean academic autonomy, it also meant financial autonomy. And this basically translated into budget cuts. These cuts were so severe that some of the universities now only receive about a quarter of their financial means from the government, where it used to be nearly 100%!

The chronic underfunding of Indonesian education was acknowledged by the Megawati regime. At that time the pledge to allocate 20% of the government budget on education was even incorporated in the constitution. But what is going on in reality? As we see below, Indonesia�s spending on education as % of GDP has slowly decreased in the early years of this century. While in 2003, Indonesia spent only 0.9% of its GDP on education, Malaysia spent nearly 8 %!

For all graphs: Red = Indonesia; Blue = Malaysia

So is the 20% objective unreasonable? For sure, the 20% objective is far from achieved in Indonesia. Malaysia however spent even more than 20%, while Indonesia did not even reach 10% (no data for 2000 & 2003). However, there has been some improvement after 2002. For 2006, the expenditure on education is 11.8 % of the budget. Some improvement, but still far from the promised 20%.

For higher education, the situation becomes even more sever if you see that Indonesia spends relatively less of its education money on higher education, compared again with Malaysia. For Malaysia, between 30 and 35% of its education budget went to higher education between 2000 and 2003. For Indonesia that is less than 25%.

What is also interesting to see in this respect is where the money is spent. Below you can see that the majority of Indonesian spending is current expenditure. For Indonesia that is over 80%, of which nearly 100% goes to salaries. For Malaysia current expenditure is around 50% and much less of this goes to salaries. Capital expenditure for Indonesia thus is very low, pointing to a serious underinvestment in Indonesia�s universities.

What has been the result of all this? Basically two things. For Indonesia it has led to rigorous inequality for higher education. In the past decades the government has done a good job in eliminating inequality in elementary education. But if we look at data from Triaswati and Roeslan (2003), presented by Nizam in a recent UNESCO report on Higher Education in Southeast Asia (PDF; 4.6 MB), we can see that inequality increases with the level of education. While 30.9% of the richest quintile receives higher education, of the poorest quintile, only 3.3% is that lucky.

The second result is that the autonomous BHMN universities are becoming ever more entrepreneurial. This in itself is not a problem and it is seen in nearly all countries. The Indonesian BHMN universities have undergone such a drastic change in just a few years but have coped with it relatively well. But they are seriously underfunded, especially if we consider that the demand upon them has grown. Increasingly they are expected to deliver high quality research and, much more than their Malaysian counterparts, rely heavily on the market and the private sector to acquire research funding. Somewhere along the line you will have to ask whether the political domination has been replaced by the domination of the market.

In this light the increase of subsidies can be seen as too little too late. Maybe it is never too late to invest in education, but an increase from 12.9 trillion to 13.5 trillion Rupiahs is definitely too little!

(data for the first four graphs are from the UNESCO education database)

Excellence for Productivity 2

2007-06-28T20:07:00.000+10:00

Two days ago I had a post on the Dutch report Excellence for Productivity of the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. A good study that deserved some more attention. I wrote a Dutch article on the outcomes of the report for ScienceGuide:

Adriaan Hofman van de RuG presenteerde recent nog een pleidooi voor meer evidence based discussies in het onderwijs. In dit licht, moet het onderzoek 'Excellence and Productivity' verwelkomd worden door belanghebbenden en belangstellenden in het Nederlandse onderwijs. Terwijl vaak maar aangenomen wordt dat excellentie bijdraagt aan economische groei en dat in Nederland het 'niet-boven-het-maaiveld' syndroom de ontwikkeling van talent in de weg staat, is het goed dat deze assumpties kritisch onder de loep worden genomen door het CPB. Kort samengevat laat het onderzoek zien dat �top skills� belangrijk zijn voor productiviteit en dat Nederland gemiddeld gezien zeer goed scoort op skills maar dat het toplaagje het relatief slecht doet. Met andere woorden: we hebben relatief slimme domme leerlingen en relatief domme slimme leerlingen. Daarover later meer; eerst even de media aandacht.

Ten eerste werd mij al snel duidelijk dat ook �evidence� niet altijd tot de juiste discussies leidt. In de media leek het of het hoger onderwijs hier ter discussie stond. Een paar voorbeelden. De Volkskrant: "niet het vmbo is het probleem van het Nederlandse onderwijs, maar de universiteiten en hogescholen"; Nederlands Dagblad: "op de universiteiten in Nederland is middelmatigheid troef"; en dan Elsevier: " als het hoger onderwijs geen ruimte schept voor toptalent, dan wordt Nederland een tweederangs natie". Nou nou...

Wat is echter het geval? Een deel van het rapport kijkt naar het slimme toplaagje van Nederland door te kijken naar PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), naar TIMSS (Third International Mathematics and Science Study) en naar de IALS (International Adult Literacy Survey). In de samenvatting wordt met name verwezen naar de PISA resultaten van 2003. Nu wordt de IALS test afgenomen onder 14-65 jarigen maar de PISA en de TIMSS tests onder respectievelijk 15 en 13 jarigen. Het CPB is hier duidelijk over, maar verschillende media lijken het ontbreken van een brilljant toplaagje onder de 15 jarigen volledig in de schoenen te willen schuiven van het hoger onderwijs. Voordat deze 15 jarige ook maar ��n stap heeft gezet in een universiteit of hogeschool.

Een tweede methodologisch puntje is dat men enigzins voorzichtig moet zijn met �evidence�. Het onderzoek over de relatie tussen de �top skills� en hun economische bijdrage zit nog vol met onzekerheden, mede omdat deze skills moeilijk te meten zijn, maar zeker ook omdat een groot aantal factoren deze relatie kan beinvloeden. Het CPB is daar wederom duidelijk in, zie met name de voorzichtigheid waarmee uitspraken worden gedaan over deze relatie in hoofdstuk twee van het rapport.

Maar dan de betekenis van de uitomsten. Uiteraard vragen de resultaten van het rapport allereerst om veranderingen in het lager en middelbaar onderwijs. Wat deze veranderingen ook mogen zijn, het feit dat Nederland gemiddeld aan de top staat (en niet middelmatig is!) moet beschouwd worden als een groot goed. Zolang het Nederlandse toplaagje nog niet de mogelijkheid krijgt om te excelleren in deze fase, ligt er des te meer druk op het hoger onderwijs om dit talent alsnog naar boven te halen. Niet zozeer � of in elk geval niet all��n � omdat dit misschien kan bijdragen aan de economische groei van Nederland, maar omdat elke leerling of student het recht heeft op onderwijs dat het hem of haar mogelijk maakt zich maximaal te ontplooien. In hoeverre gebeurt dit? En hoe kan dat verbeterd worden?

De gemengde resultaten van de selectie aan de poort laten zien dat een laagje elitair onderwijs niet van de ene op de andere dag kan worden gecre�erd. Overigens ben ik niet direct een voorstander van selectie aan de Bachelor-poort, mede vanwege de problematiek rondom selectiecriteria. En er wordt immers al geselecteerd door het Nederlandse middelbaar onderwijs. Maar er bestaan in het Nederlandse HO wel degelijk initiatieven om talent beter te benutten. Er wordt al rijk ge�xperimenteerd met zogenaamde Honours trajecten, en tevens zijn er enkele �elite� colleges (UCU, Roosevelt) redelijk succesvol gebleken en zijn er gelijksoortige initiatieven op komst. Ondanks (de mythe van) het gelijkheidsdenken, wordt het langzaam maar zeker meer geoorloofd � en gewaardeerd � om je hoofd boven het maaiveld uit te steken. Dit mag je best even de tijd geven. Ik verwacht met name dat de Honours trajecten hier een waardevol instrument kunnen zijn. Zij die iets extra willen doen, moeten de mogelijkheid krijgen en gestimuleerd worden, maar moeten daar dan later ook voor beloond worden. En laat de verschillende universiteiten maar experimenteren met verschillende Honours modellen.

Het instellen van de BaMa structuur is natuurlijk wel de gelegenheid om selectie in te voeren voor het Masters traject. Maar ook hier zal dat niet direct leiden tot Hermans� Topmasters. Gezien het diepgewortelde gelijkheidsdenken � wat het Nederlandse HO ver heeft gebracht � zal het een tijd duren voordat top-Masters boven het maaiveld uitkomen. Het label �top� cre�er je niet, maar dat moet je verdienen! Wat hierbij vaak vergeten wordt is dat er ook een motivatie moet zijn om zich voor zo�n top-Master in te schrijven (en er extra voor te betalen). Leveren ze echt top kwaliteit? Heb je meer kansen op de arbeidsmarkt? Zullen bedrijven en overheidsorganisaties een hoger startsalaris betalen? Of heeft de arbeidsmarkt eigenlijk geen idee over de diversiteit in Masters? Toenemende ranking van programmas en instellingen en het toenemende belang van (internationale) accreditatie zal dit process van differentiatie waarschijnlijk versnellen, met name in de meer professionele Masters. Maar waar het op neer komt is dat talent niet alleen ontwikkeld moet worden, maar ook erkend en gewaardeerd; door bedrijven en overheidsorganisaties, maar ook door universiteiten als toekomstige werkegevers!

Tenslotte betekent dit alles natuurlijk ook dat docenten meer oog moeten hebben voor de mogelijkheden van hun studenten, ook hun �slimme� studenten. Er dient meer waarde te worden gehecht aan het onderwijs zelf en aan de onderwijsaspecten in de training van docenten (ofwel in het promotietraject). Daarnaast moet men natuurlijk vooral denken aan het vermijden van grote collegezalen en teveel administratieve lasten voor docenten. Een recent voorstel van Plasterk zou hier een belangrijke bijdrage aan kunnen leveren, nl. de Akademie-assistent. Behalve voor onderzoek zouden deze ook ingezet kunnen worden voor het onderwijs, min of meer volgens het Amerikaanse �teaching-assistent� model.

Middelmatigheid is dus niet troef in het Nederlandse HO! Het CPB rapport biedt voldoende �evidence� om lopende initiatieven verder te ontwikkelen en creatief na te denken over additionele maatregelen. Universiteiten en hogescholen lijken tot nu toe best in staat om dit zelf te doen. Maar laten we daarbij vooral niet vergeten dat � ondanks al het doemdenken � het Nederlandse (hoger) onderwijs gemiddeld gezien op een zeer hoog niveau staat.

Smart dumb people and dumb smart people

2007-06-26T15:21:00.000+10:00

The Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) published an interesting study yesterday. The report - Excellence for Productivity? - investigates the position of the Netherlands vis-a-vis other OECD countries in terms of their skill distribution.

The findings in short:

The Dutch perform very well on average
The 'not so bright' Dutch students are smart compared to their 'not so bright' counterparts in other countries.
The smartest students in the Netherlands (the top (99th) percentile) are less brilliant than their brilliant counterparts in other OECD countries.

The findings mainly refer to pre-tertiary education. According to the CPB, the findings indicate that there is scope for improvement of skills at the right-hand side (the 'smart side') of the distribution. Therefore, policies that raise the Dutch performance at high- and top skill levels may improve Dutch productivity.

The (problematic?) balance between egalitarianism and excellence has been an issue in Dutch politics for the past years. And history shows that shifting the balance is easier planned than done, also in higher education. Measures like the selective admission of students or differentiation in student fees have not (yet) had the desired effects. However, various initiatives are being experimented with such as honours programmes and 'elite' colleges. Elitism isn't really a Dutch thing, I guess... Or is it?

Indonesia Too Democratic?

2007-06-11T21:18:00.000+10:00

Can a country be too democratic? Vice President of Indonesia, Jusuf Kalla, thinks it can be. The Jakarta Post reports on his visit to China, and it seems like Kalla is quite impressed by what is going on in China. If only Indonesia was a bit less democratic they would be able to make the same progress as China is making.

"China's strength is that it can plan and implement. Our system, which is too democratic with too much individual freedom that often disregards the rights of others, has made it difficult for us to build infrastructure"

"As long as individual right is above public responsibility, we will not progress... That's the only problem we have now."

A strong government role can help economic development, as is shown by Indonesia's neighbors Singapore and Malaysia. But going the same way as China is simply not an option for Indonesia anymore, after almost 10 years of democracy. And despite all the troubles in its short history of democracy, the country is showing progress. Progress not just in terms of economic development but also in terms of intellectual and artistic freedom. Sure...Indonesians might hit the streets a few times too many, but I guess that's a healthy sign, even though it might not always correspond with the governments plans.

An interesting example is the TV show Newsdotcom, better known as 'Republik Mimpi' or the Republic of Dreams (below is an item on the show by Australian current affairs programme Dateline). It is a show with a healthy dose of political satire, including impersonations of former presidents Gus Dur and Megawatti, the current president Yudhoyono and even Jusuf Kalla. This definitely wasn't imaginable in the Soeharto Era and probably would lead to quite some government opposition in other countries in Southeast Asia. Even though Information and Communication Minister Sofyan Djalil planned to file a legal complaint against the producer, the show has been allowed to continue.

Maybe a small sign of hope amidst the many troubling things happening in Indonesia. Nevertheless, I think it is an important one. And in the long run, such minor steps and a little bit 'too much democracy and individual freedom' can give Indonesia some major advantages compared to (semi-)authoritarian countries.

Group of 8: Seizing the Opportunities

2007-06-06T22:03:00.000+10:00

The Group of 8, the group of Australia's leading universities (or self proclaimed Ivy League) has today shared its vision on the future of Australian higher education, or better, what needs to be done to keep it dynamic and competitive. According to the Go8, the current system was designed for a past era and does no longer provide the right framework for universities to perform in a global knowledge economy (something that National University of Singapore president Shih Choon Fong seems to agree with).

The current Australian higher education and research system is under-resourced and over-regulated (hear hear!). But it is also under-planned and insufficiently diversified for the needs of contemporary Australia. The Go8 provides eight proposals that should increase the flexibility that the universities need to remain competitive and that will serve the Australian community:

An Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC)
The establishment of an Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC), responsible for planning, resource allocation and regulation in respect of post-school education throughout Australia.

Student-driven higher education
Student access to undergraduate and graduate courses should be aided via a universal entitlement to an income-contingent loan and, for meritorious and needy students, via national tuition scholarships.

Mission-based block funding of universities
A new funding line, University-Community Partnerships, as a mechanism to correct for market failure in the event that student choice leaves neglected or dissipated some fields of knowledge that have national or regional importance. The ATEC should have the capacity to provide a number of places for designated �public interest� courses for which the Government pays a community service obligation retainer.

National investment in university research
If Australia�s best universities are not going forward then Australia will be going backwards against international competitors. Therefore they suggest:
(i) National competitive peer-reviewed grants for research: by 2012 the amount of annual funding should be double its present value;
(ii) Adequate investment in research infrastructure: a rise in the Research Infrastructure Block Grants (RIBG);
(iii) National research hub & spokes arrangements; for this, a program is needed to provide Australian academics with access to research universities combined with support for the host universities;
(iv) International engagement of Australian university research: Australian researchers must be able to participate in international research platforms and networks.

Performance-based block funding for research
A new, tightly targeted research funding program would allocate block funds to universities, with funding agreements subject to rigorous seven year cyclical evaluations.

Research quality evaluation
A validated metrics-based approach to the assessment of research quality and its broader societal benefits should be adopted.

A dual system of assistance for research students
A gradual expansion of research training places which should be funded with the goal of raising the total number of domestic research degree students from some 22,000 to around 30,000 over five years.

Managing the transitions
During the transition period each university should retain its research funding at close to present levels through performance-based block grants.

I guess, with all the requests for extra funding, it is written in anticipation of an election win for Labor later this year. On the other hand, it pretty much continues the new public managment and accountability agenda of the last decades. I'll have a closer look soon and address some of the proposals at a later stage. For now, here is the full report: 'seizing the opportunities' (pdf).

America and the Bologna Process

2007-06-04T21:41:00.000+10:00

The European process of harmonisation of degree structures is also causing discussions on the other side of the Atlantic. The participating countries have implemented (or are implementing) a three tier degree structure (Bachelor, Master, PhD). In most countries, the undergraduate phase will take three years. In my opinion, one reason for this rather short duration, is the fact that many countries - like the Netherlands - saw their previous 4 year degrees (doctorandus, licentiaat, magister and what have you) as equivalent to a Master's degree. And because governments did not want Bologna to lead to extra funding, they needed to stuff the Bachelor and Master into 4 years.

But what if you plan to do a Master's degree in the US, after your European three-year bachelor? According to Daniel Denecke of the US Council of Graduate Studies, resistance to recognizing three-year degrees at American graduate schools is rampant, although there were some trends toward acceptance of the new European model:

29 percent said they did not accept three-year undergraduate year degrees in 2005; that number dropped to 18 percent in 2006. In 2005, 9 percent said they�d offer provisional acceptance to applicants with three-year degrees, a number that fell to 4 percent in 2006. The percentage of universities that indicated they�d evaluate the degree for its equivalence rose from 40 to 49 percent in the year, while the percentage of institutions that consider a student�s competency on an individual basis increased from 22 to 29 percent.

"What we�re seeing is a trend line toward greater acceptance of three-year degrees and greater nuance as to how universities are able to establish the suitability of that student to succeed in a university."

But, as Inside HigherEd reports, in Europe academics are also debating the preparatory value of the three-year degree in itself. David Crosier, program director for the European University Association:

"Although things are changing quickly, there�s still a sense among many, that everyone in a university who gets a bachelor�s should go on and get a master�s as well. This is maybe a problematic issue, given that the master�s was developed to be a specific cycle with its own goals, and that those goals should be built around the labor market so that people will have sufficient skills to move out of higher education if they want to"

It touches a few fundamental issues. First of all, is three years of higher education enough to enter the labor market? Like Crosier said and other surveys have shown, both employers and students in Europe still see the four (3+1) year master's degree as the standard. This actually reduces the Bologna reform to some extra flexibility in the last year. On the other hand, such changes need time...

The other question it brings forward: is a three year European Bachelor's degree equivalent to a four year US Bachelor's degree? European programmes are usually specialised from the beginning, while the US degrees provide more general education. In a comment on an earlier Inside HigherEd article on this issue, someone (from the US) claims:

"Our college students in their freshman year typically not only have to focus on the general education they didn�t receive in high school, but on the basic language and study skills they never received at all."

That's probably overstated, but it is true that US students receive more general education in their university studies. Whether this is necessary to 'catch up' or whether this means that US students will have a broader body of knowledge, I don't know. Most probably it depends very much on the college that they attend (and the high school they attended before that). At the same time, it is an illusion to think that with the harmonisation of degrees, the degrees in all European countries and all European universities will be of the same standard.

Malaysia as an Education Hub

2007-05-28T16:53:00.000+10:00

The UNSW debacle in Singapore and the exit of Johns Hopkins last year, have dealt a serious blow to the Global Schoolhouse strategy of the Singapore government. Singapore�s neighbor Malaysia announced a similar strategy last year. With this strategy, Malaysia becomes one of the most interesting examples of the way that higher education is globalizing nowadays. A major exporter as well as importer of higher education, with foreign universities within its borders and Malay universities establishing branches outside Malaysia.

First of all, Malaysia has long been sending many of their students and university staff abroad, especially for postgraduate studies, because their own system could not absorb the increase of students in the last decades. In addition, the racial quota for public universities to enroll Malay forced a lot of students from Chinese and Indian backgrounds to pursue their higher education abroad. The last decade has seen a sharp rise in private universities and colleges that have been able to absorb many of these students and the Malay that were not accepted in the public sector. Despite this, the flow of Malaysian students abroad � especially to the English speaking countries � has remained substantial (see table).

Malaysian students abroad 1999-2004

In addition to sending students abroad to pursue their education, the Malaysian government has also admitted higher education institutions into Malaysia in order to meet the increasing demand of higher education in the country. The establishment of such branch campuses has to fulfill a wide range of legal requirement (on ownership issues, but also on the content of education), but this has not kept universities from establishing these branches. The best known examples are Monash University, Curtin and Swinburne from Australia and Nottingham University from the UK. Although these partnerships were usually based on so-called sandwich programmes (where part was done in the home country of the university), they now also offer full degrees in Malaysia.

But in recent years, both the flows of students as well as the flows of institutions are no longer one way but now go both ways. Although public universities in Malaysia do not undertake activities abroad � and probably they are not allowed to � the private ones seem to become more and more active. You can now actually obtain a Malaysian degree in London, offered by the Lim Kok Wing University, well known in Malaysia for its IT and Design programmes. And this university is not just a little office somewhere in London but is established in a beautiful old English building. But Lim Kok Wing did not stop in London. It�s also the first Asian university to establish a branch campus in Africa, in Botswana to be precise. Recently, other education institutions are following and are also expanding abroad.

And now the Malaysian government wants to make Malaysia a true education hub for the region, more or less like its southern neighbor. The Ministry of Higher Education has set a target of 100,000 students for 2010. Growth will probably mainly be sought in the region and in the Middle East. Together with Singapore, Malaysia probably offers the best quality higher education in Southeast Asia, although Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia are catching up. Due to language (and cultural/religious) issues, Malaysia is popular for Indonesian students, especially for those that cannot get into the local public universities in Indonesia and cannot afford the top private ones or higher education abroad. For Chinese students Malaysia might be popular because of the widespread Chinese influences in Malay society, more apparent though in the private institutions than in the public ones. More recently, especially after 9-11, Malaysia has also become a popular destination for Middle Eastern students. Yesterday, the Star reported on an agreement between Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed and his Saudi counterpart Dr Khaled Mohamed Al-Anqari on sending the Saudi students to Malaysian universities(*). In addition to the Middle East, students coming from Africa (especially Libya, Sudan and Kenya) are also on the rise (see table; click to enlarge).

Foreign Students in Malaysia 1999-2003

To reach the goal of 100,000 international students, the government will need to double the intake of foreign students. There are obviously pros and cons to a strategy like this. For many, a first reaction would be to ask why a government wants to increase the number of international students if it barely has the capacity to meet the demand of its own people? On the other hand, it can generate extra financial resources (if the fees for foreign students are profitable) by which the education of the Malaysian population can be supported. Obviously creating more multicultural campus will also have more intangible positive effects. And the quality of education can increase if these foreign students will be of such quality that they will positively influence the academic atmosphere and quality in the universities. And of course there are the economic effects through spending and consumption from the students and through the new jobs that are created for such an expanding higher education sector.

So...should the Singapore case make the Malaysian government nervous? Maybe not yet, but they better keep an eye on the developments in their neighboring city state. Malaysia�s plans are not as ambitious as Singapore�s �grand� strategies and they are less dependent on foreign providers than is the case in Singapore. But I hope they will not become obsessed with the projected number of 100,000, and instead just focus on the overall quality of their higher education. Then the foreign students will follow automatically...

_________________________________________________________
(*) A small footnote...not directly related but important enough to mention.

Saudi government officials have been traveling the world for the past months in order to find �a conducive environment� for their students to study. Especially because it was getting harder for them to get visas in the UK and the US. I remember that one of their officials visited Australian campuses as well, in order to ��nspect� the universities here. I have not heard anything about this issue since...maybe the Australian culture was not considered very conducive by these government leaders, that always know best what is good for �their� citizens...

But even Malaysia was not perfect. Saudi female students had specific requirements: �They have to travel with their chaperone who are either their male family members or husbands, so visas can be a problem. Another issue is dressing � some female students want to keep their faces covered.� The Minister said he would look into these issues... Covering the faces is not allowed in Malaysian public universities. And I think universities shouldn�t change their values just to benefit more from the international higher education market. Believe me, I work in Australia, so I should know!

Questions on the UNSW ASIA debacle

2007-05-24T08:21:00.000+10:00

After three months in operation, the Singapore adventure of the University of New South Wales has come to an end. Another 22 million Singapore dollars down the drain. The decision to establish a branch campus in Singapore was taken in 2005 and already led to some commotion at that time (see this post). In 2005, UNSW from Australia and the University of Warwick from the UK were the only two foreign universities granted special status by the Singaporean Government (through its Economic Development Board, EDB) to set up a fully fledged independent teaching and research institution offering undergraduate degrees (the UNSW ASIA website has been taken down but click here for some info from the old website and here for some facts).

At that time, the senate of Warwick declined the offer of the Singapore government. The official reason for the Warwick senate to vote against the venture was the big financial risk. An additional reason however was the concern about the lack of academic freedom. UNSW had a different opinion, after all there was "no such thing as absolute freedom of speech in any country".

UNSW opened the doors of its Asia Campus at the beginning of the 2007 academic year, planning to reach a population of up to 15,000 students on the long term. But the campus will be closed down after only one semester:

Before making this decision, the University has explored an extensive range of options. However the enrollment numbers for 2007 did not meet our expectations, and this has caused us to revise our projections. The decision to close down is a difficult one but it is the prudent course of action to take.

UNSW Vice Chancellor, Professor Fred Hilmer inherited the situation when he became VC in 2006. In a press conference in the Straits Times video news he explains the UNSW decision to pull out (see the whole video here):

The economics of the campus, without significant support made it impossible to continue. While we had support for the initial concept from the EDB, as the enrollment played out and as the concept had to be changed, the risk of the venture increased.

The Economic Development Board stated that it regrets the decision of UNSW. Mr Ko Kheng Hwa, Managing Director, EDB said:

We regret that UNSW has decided to close the Singapore campus. EDB has been fully committed and has worked closely with UNSW from day one towards the establishment of its Singapore campus. EDB will push ahead with our efforts to realise Singapore�s Global Schoolhouse vision. We are fully committed to developing Singapore into a premier education hub comprising a rich diversity of high quality education institutions and programmes from all over the world.

UNSW Asia had only 140 students enrolled in its first semester, 100 of them being Singapore residents. The University had a target of 300 students for the first year. This all leaves me with two big questions:

1. What is the real reason? If the target was 300 and the enrollment was 140, would you stop an operation - that has been planned for two years and in which 17.5 million Australian dollars is invested - just after a few months? Of course not! This is just too abrupt. After investing this amount, you would at least try for a few years. Somehow I have the idea that there is more going on, but I can't figure out what it is.

2. Public universities and their private ventures. I am sure that UNSW and UNSW Asia keep separate books. But somehow UNSW, an Australian public university, will be affected by the costs of the Singaporese adventure. This discussion has come up in relation to the South African branch campus of Monash university as well. It clearly shows the risk of letting public organizations operate privately overseas. Of course, UNSW will argue that their Australian activities will not suffer from the UNSW Asia debacle. But the money has to come from somewhere. The costs are even likely to rise because UNSW has been so decent to offer their UNSW Asia students a place at UNSW in Sydney and will make scholarships available.

Two pressing questions. Whether we will ever know the answer to the first one? I don't know. But I hope the second one will be discussed because it addresses a fundamental issue.

UPDATE: look at my recent post on this issue for some explanations

Bologna in London

2007-05-22T15:58:00.000+10:00

The Fifth Ministerial Conference on the Bologna Process - a bi-annual event where the progress of the Bologna Process is monitored and new actions are decided upon - took place in London last week. This basically means a bombardment of papers, reports and speeches about what's been going on and what needs to be done, coming from everyone that is somehow related to higher education. All this has culminated in the London Communique (pdf).

I haven't had the time to go through all the documents yet, but the Communique does'nt seem to hold many surprises (which is not surprising of course for an inter-governmental document set up by over 40 countries). I did however read about an interesting option by Franck Vandenbroucke (in Dutch), Flemish minister of education and host for the Sixth Conference in 2009. He argues that the difference between the late and early adopters of the Bologna principles is too wide and that it is better for the early staters to explore the next frontiers for European cooperation, instead of waiting for the rest to catch up.

Euractiv has an article about the different perspectives on the outcome of the 5th Ministerial Conference. Here's my interpretation:

The European Union:

We want universities to be liberated from the shackles of state domination (you'll be better of with us)!

European Students:

It's all about us so you better take us seriously! Or else...

European Universities:

If you give us more freedom and more money we will give you whatever you want (and pay for)

European Business:

Actually, we have no clue what we want so we'll just repeat that we want your graduates to be interdisciplinary, process oriented and adaptable problem solvers that can work in teams. You figure it out...

The Brits:

We should all adopt similar standards... preferably the British ones

The Next (World) Bank President

2007-05-20T14:55:00.000+10:00

While Wolfowitz has barely resigned as president of the World Bank, the Financial Times is already speculating about his successor. A quick look at the possible nominations makes clear that World Bank is first and foremost a Bank.

The first name the FT mentions is Robert M. Kimmitt, the US deputy Treasury secretary. Kimmitts bio reveals that his experience in the developing world is limited to his military service in Vietnam in 1970-1971. He served in the 173rd Airborne Brigade, earning three Bronze Star Medals, the Purple Heart, the Air Medal, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. More recently, he has served as the US Ambassador to Germany in the early 1990s, the country where he also attended high school in the 1960s.

Other possible candidates mentioned by the FT are (1) Paul Volcker, former US Federal Reserve Chairman; (2) Robert Zoellick, former US Deputy Secretary of State and current Vice President International for Goldman Sachs and involved in the neocon Project for the New American Century and (3) Hank Paulson, current US Secretary of the Treasury, former CEO of Goldman Sachs and a 2004 Bush Pioneer.

We'll probably hear more about this before Wolfowitz steps down on June 30th... And then they can finally get back to work.

The HEEF: Economist's interpretation

2007-05-11T13:14:00.000+10:00

The Economist has an article on the Australian budget which was presented a few days ago. In my previous post I highlighted one item in that budget: the Higher Education Endowment Fund. In this fund, the government will deposit 5 billion Australian dollars, securing future funding of around 300 million a year (and more if the fund will grow in the future). The board of the fund will select 'strategic investment proposals which provide quality infrastructure and support Australian Government policy with respect to diversity, specialisation and responsiveness to labour market needs'.

I though it was quite an innovative approach to government funding of higher education but this is all what the Economist makes of it:

"the budget offered A$5 billion for new research centres in Australia's public universities"

Seems to me that there is quite a difference between the establishment of a fund (of which only the revenues can be spent) and 'offering 5 billion dollars' and a difference between research centres and investments which provide 'quality infrastructure and support Australian Government policy'.

The Higher Education Endowment Fund

2007-05-08T21:50:00.000+10:00

Earlier this year, Kevin Rudd - leader of the Australian Labor Party - promised the country an education revolution if they would be voted into power (elections are later this year). Today, Peter Costello - treasurer of the current government - has tried to outdo Rudd in the new budget that was presented today. It's already been dubbed the education budget.

One of the most innovative items is the creation of a Higher Education Endowment Fund. The government shall set up the fund and put in an amount of 5 billion Australian dollars (4 billion US; 3 billion Euros (!)). The money is meant to build world class universities for Australia, according to Education Minister Julie Bishop:

"The fund is expected to provide a dividend of around $900 million over three years from 2008/09. The dividend will be distributed to universities by the Minister for Education, Science and Training taking into account the advice of an independent HEEF board. This investment will promote excellence, quality and specialisation in Australian universities for years to come, helping our institutions to become truly world class."

In addition to the HEEF, the Federal Government has also unveiled a $3.5 billion package to be spent over four years in higher education, vocational training and schools. The Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee (AVCC) by word of Professor Sutton - its president - has already welcomed the budget:

�The Australian Government through this Budget has shown its commitment to investing in Australia�s universities today, to ensure we continue to produce high quality, work ready graduates and researchers into the future. This Budget delivers on the key areas that the AVCC has been lobbying for."

Yes, I think it is good news for higher education in Australia. Maybe not so good for Labor. It will be interesting to follow this new instrument and see how it develops. Will the fund grow further by further donations from private parties and governments? After all, 5 billion for all of Australia's 41 universities becomes rather bleak when compared to US Universities. In the US, 12 endowment funds of individual (private) universities already exceed this amount, with Harvard topping the list with almost 29 billion. It will be especially interesting to see whether the availability of the fund will be an excuse for future budget cuts.

The treasurer has at least tried to assure the Australians that only the dividend will be used and that the fund itself will not be touched, not even by Labor. Mr Costello - referring to Labor's plan to use Australia's 'Future Fund' to fund a national high-speed broadband network - explained it like this:

"Let me make this clear - once the paw goes into the honey pot, it can pull all of the honey out. I put the honey in there - and I'm locking the honey against the paw."

Later this year, Australian voters will decide whether to leave Mr Costello with the key to the pot, or whether to let the bears in.

Thou Shalt Compete

2007-05-07T12:42:00.000+10:00

The Economist gives a short review of the Bologna process and explains how it will inevitably increase competition in Europe. But for 'Old Europe' (as the Economist likes to call it) this requires more than just some structural changes:

"The more hidebound European universities must be wondering what on earth they have started. Self-interest has prodded them to think about students as customers: both wealthy foreign ones, and bright locals tempted to finish their studies overseas. Governments have realised they could save money if their universities made students study a bit more briskly, gaining degrees and entering the workforce earlier. Universities are beginning to compete for the brightest and best European exchange students too. But that's the problem with trying to become competitive. Before you know it, you may find yourself having to compete."

Read the full article here

EIT and Policy Research

2007-05-06T10:49:00.000+10:00

A few weeks ago, I discussed a study of Luc Soete and Peter Tindemans on the feasibility of the European Institute of Technology. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis, they concluded that the decentralized EIT that has been proposed by the Commission was not feasible. It is too dispersed; it would not increase significantly the research output in a field; it cannot match a top tier university in providing an environment for training graduates; and a dispersed institute cannot adequately organize technology transfer. As an alternative, they suggested a clustered model for an EIT. Food for thought, you would think...

In the last weekend of April, EU competitiveness ministers backed a German EU presidency initiative on gradual progress towards a European Institute of Technology. In a public hearingCommissioner Figel said that it was time for the initial EIT plans to reach a conclusion. He claimed that there is a positive momentum now: "either we get it now or it's lost".

Obviously I was surprised to read nothing about the Soete/Tindemans study in the report of the hearing. As far as I could see, the design and organisation of the EIT presented in the hearing was exactly the same as the one suggested by the Commission before the study was published. This is all the more surprising considering that the research was conducted for a committee of the European Parliament. Of course government bodies are not obliged to follow the recommendations of reports that they have commissioned. But you would expect that it would at least be taken into consideration, especially since the authors are well known and respected researchers in this field.

This seems to be a typical example of the political (ab)use of policy research and policy analysis. If the results and recommendations are politically opportune and correspond with the politicians objectives they are praised and heralded as ground breaking landmark studies. If not, let's just neglect them and get on with what we planned.

You would at least hope that decision makers on research policies in Europe would take research seriously...

Meritocracy, Tolerance & Paternalism

2007-05-05T12:39:00.000+10:00

The practice of 'affirmative action' for ethnic Malays remains a sensitive issue in Malaysia. The practice was established in order to raise the living standards of bumiputra Malay (vis-a-vis the Chinese and the Indian minorities) by giving them preferential treatment in a wide range of areas such as economic ownership and education. This New Economic Policy was implemented in order to avoid repetition of the 1969 riots between the prosperous Chinese minority and the ethnic Malays.

I witnessed the sensitivity of the issue when I was in Kuala Lumpur last October. A KL based think tank published a report (pdf) in which it claimed that - for the case of equity ownership - the targets set by the Malaysian government were already achieved in the 1990s and that therefore the policy was no longer needed. Within no time, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi claimed that their methodology was flawed and that the authors had acted irresponsibly by publishing the report.

I won't go into the technical discussion about equity ownership here, or on whether the think tank or Badawi was right. However, what did strike me was the lack of real debate on the issue (in the 'PM-friendly' official media), or better, the way that such debates were suppressed by the Prime Minister and other high officials. After some time, the author of the report resigned and the whole thing blew over.

It does bring up the question of how Malaysia balances this paternalism with it's strong emphasis on knowledge and creativity as the new driver of the Malaysian economy. Meritocracy is very much the new word in government, but can there be real meritocracy in a paternalistic state and in a state where a majority receives preferential treatment over minorities? Well, it has done a very good job so far. Mahathir and Badawi have succeeded in building a peaceful society and one that is far more prosperous than most other countries in Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, I believe that 'social engineering' is not the way forward for Malaysia and that they should take meritocracy seriously. Because of the paternalistic and ethnic policies of the government, Malaysia is running the risk of losing more and more of its bright and talented.

The issue is also raised by Sadanand Dhume, a Bernard Schwartz fellow at the Asia Society in Washington. He writes a provocative article on YaleGlobal Online (in which he also discusses it in the context of Islamic orthodoxy). Here are some interesting paragraphs, but read the whole article here.

After riots in Kuala Lumpur in 1969 between the prosperous Chinese minority and ethnic Malays, Malaysia instituted a program to raise the Malay share of national income. The government aggressively favored Malay businessmen with government contracts, and Malays gained a virtual monopoly on generous government scholarships for overseas study. At the same time � in order to grow the pie rather than to merely carve out a larger slice for Malays � Malaysia followed outward-looking economic policies that encouraged foreign investment and export-led growth.

The rise of China, India and Vietnam, and the demands of a shift from low-cost manufacturing to more knowledge-intensive work, raise serious doubts about the viability of the Malaysian model. The country needs freedom of inquiry to unleash the creativity of its people. It needs to foster an atmosphere of tolerance to staunch the outflow of the country�s brightest non-Malays and to attract overseas talent and investment. Neither is likely without rethinking the twinned and contentious issues of ethnic preferences and religious supremacism.

These troubles could not come at a worse time. Malaysia�s traditional strength in low-cost electronics manufacturing is being challenged by the rise of China and Vietnam. The government has invested heavily in technology infrastructure in the form of the Multimedia Supercorridor, ambitiously hailed as the Silicon Valley of the East. But amid white-hot competition for scientific talent and despite relaxing some of the usual race laws, Malaysia finds it hard to attract and retain Indian and Chinese engineers. Meanwhile, many of the country�s brightest students � especially non-Malays � migrate to Australia, the US and Singapore, where everyone enjoys freedom of conscience and equality before the law.

World Class Universities

2007-05-04T10:54:00.000+10:00

Robert Birnbaum, professor of higher education at the University of Maryland and author of some very interesting books on higher education (How Colleges Work; Management Fads in Higher Education) has written an interesting (and amusing) article in International Higher Education (the Quarterly of the Center for International Higher Education (CIHE) in Boston College).

Birnbaum is worried about the World Class University ranking crisis. Universities around the world are either proclaiming that they have attained or try to achieve this mythical status. But actually, we have no clue what it means. Philip Altbach, leader of CIHE, has written before on the cost and benefits of the race towards world class:

Everyone wants a world-class university. No country feels it can do without one. The problem is that no one knows what a world-class university is, and no one has figured out how to get one. Everyone, however, refers to the concept. We are in an age of academic hype in which universities of different kinds in diverse countries claim this exalted status-often with little justification.

Birnbaum gives some suggestion on some alternative ways to identify world class universities:

The Bentham System - this scheme, based on the 19th century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham's principle of Utilitarianism, proposes that the best universities are those that bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number.
Olympic System - In the Olympic System, teams of university faculty would compete every four years in head to head competitions combining athletic and intellectual prowess to determine their world rankings
Borges System - our scholarly task is merely to identify the book of true ratings from among the infinite number of books that contain very similar, but false, ratings which also exist
Sausage System - Throw U.S. News, the Gourman Report, the Times Hiigher Education Supplement, and other rankings created by systems of all kinds into the same bowl, add and average out the results and voila! Just as we do not know how a sausage is made (or, more to the point, we don't want to know) the Sausage System makes it difficult to understand just what has gone into any particular set of ratings.
Lake Wobegon System - in Lake Wobegon, you will remember, all the children are above average. This suggests the possibility of significantly expanding the number of institutions that can be ranked as world class merely by increasing the number of institutions in each category.

But he continues on a more serious note. Building on a metaphor by Daniel Dennett, he argues that such World Class Universities can only be built if they are firmly grounded in strong and indigenous educational and social foundations Trying to develop them by using imported rhetoric, imported models and large sums of money is destined to fail:

"Attempting to build World-Class Universities without attending first to the educational and social ground on which such institutions might stand is, as Ivan Illich once said, is "like trying to do urban renewal in New York City from the twelfth story up." Rather than more World Class Universities, what we really need in countries everywhere are more world-class technical institutes, world-class community colleges, world class colleges of agriculture, world class teachers colleges, and world class regional state universities."

A similar conclusion was drawn by Altbach. He concluded that as universities around the world seem to be orienting themselves to this single academic ideal, institutions and nations need to assess carefully their needs, resources, and long-term interests before launching into a campaign to build world-class institutions:

"Universities operate in both national and global contexts. The world-class idea falls into the global sphere. It assumes that the university is competing with the best academic institutions in the world and is aspiring to the pinnacle of excellence and recognition. National and even regional realities may differ. They relate to the need of the immediate society and economy and imply responsiveness to local communities. In these contexts, the nature of academic performance and roles may differ from what is expected at institutions competing in the global realm. To label one sphere world class while relegating the others to the nether regions of the academic hierarchy is perhaps inevitable, but nonetheless unfortunate."

I wholeheartedly agree with both conclusions. Universities are one of the oldest institutions and are clearly embedded in a nations' cultural, political and social context. This is not just the case for the Oxbridge-like universities, but also for the more recently established universities. However, this should not be a reason to avoid learning from each others experiences or models. Even copying models from other parts of the world does not necessarily lead to failure. It's just a matter of adaptation. And it is this process of local adaptation that is made difficult by the pressures on universities to adhere to so-called global world class standards.

Blame it on the rankings

2007-04-28T12:56:00.000+10:00

Serious critique on rankings and league tables. This time not about the flawed methodologies and inaccuracies in the data collection, but on the detrimental effects of rankings. They 'erode academic vigour' and they 'threaten the country's prosperity'.

In the Guardian, Geoffrey Alderman argues that the league tables lead to grade inflation and a lowering of standards in order for universities to appear high in the rankings:

"How has British higher education got itself into this mess? Part of the answer lies in the league-table culture that now permeates the sector. The more firsts and upper seconds a university awards, the higher its ranking is likely to be. So each university looks closely at the grading criteria used by its league-table near rivals, and if they are found to be using more lenient grading schemes, the argument is put about that "peer" institutions must do the same. The upholding of academic standards is thus replaced by a grotesque "bidding" game, in which standards are inevitably sacrificed on the alter of public image - as reflected in newspaper rankings."

Alderman however, does not blame it all on rankings and league tables. It's also the changing student body that is to be blamed. Or more in particular, the funding system that has changed the student body:

"As UK students come to pay a greater proportion of the real cost of their tuition, they view themselves less as clients in the learning process and more as customers with needs to be satisfied. They are less interested in the acquisition of knowledge and of the critical skills needed to evaluate it, and more interested merely in acquiring and regurgitating those segments of knowledge necessary to obtain a degree."

I think Alderman is a bit too swift in his conclusions and his causal relations. Instead of the race-to-the-bottom thesis you could also argue that league tables lead to a race-to-the-top. That of course does require the rankings to use valid criteria and methods. His argument about the student body doesn't hold in my opinion. At least the relation isn't as straightforward as Alderman portrays. The 'students as customers' perspective can have a very positive effect on higher education. Since they payed, they want value for their money. They want scheduled classes to proceed, books to be available, lecturers to be prepared and to be involved, facilities to be up to date, etc. Alderman however doesn't seem to regard the student body very highly. They are reduced to degree seeking individuals.

The second critique comes from Richard Pike, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He blames the lack of maths skills on the rankings and league tables:

"In the race to achieve higher rankings in the tables staff are discouraging pupils from taking mathematics after the age of 16 because the subject is viewed as difficult, and therefore a risk to league positions through examination failures."

To underline their argument they compared a (1st year students) maths test of "a respected English university" with a Chinese pre-entry test:

Ouch... I don't think you can blame this all on the rankings, but that hurts...

(thanks to ScienceGuide and Rangkingwatch for pointing me to the articles)

Higher Education and Statistics

2007-04-24T10:17:00.000+10:00

The OECD has issued its latest Factbook. The OECD factbook 2007 contains a large amount of indicators on issues ranging from economics to the environment and from population to health. And of course on higher education. Some time ago I've been critical about the presentation of some of the OECD higher education statistics, but I must admit that they do a great job in collecting them. The OECD is without doubt the best source for cross-national statistics in the fields of higher education and science & innovation.

But of course you can do a lot with statistics and the media knows that. Just check out this article in the Higher Education section of the Australian:

"Australia's spending on tertiary education per student went backwards in the eight years after the Coalition came to power, leaving the nation ranked alongside Portugal, Poland and the Slovak Republic."

That sounds pretty bad... This definitely leaves the impression that funding per student levels in Australia are now behind Portugal, Poland and the Slovak Republic. I checked and... they are just behind the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark, clearly above the OECD average and ranking 8th in the OECD member countries. And in the mean time, it has one of the highest attainment rates for young people in the OECD (see graph; click to enlarge). Obviously this journalist only looked at the graphs that were presented on the OECD website and didn't check any further.

But didn't it decline then? Yes it did, and yes the commonwealth government should channel more resources to universities if it expects them to be Backing Australia's Future. I've said before that I'm not exactly convinced that the current government is doing a good job in the field of higher education, but still I prefer to stay with the facts.

But what exactly the facts are is also not always clear. Some time ago, the news programme 'the 7.30 Report' featured a debate between Minister Julie Bishop and Labor education spokesman Stephen Smit. I think that they spend half the time talking about the OECD statistics and how bad Australia scores in them:

JULIE BISHOP: Between 1995 and 2007 Federal government funding for higher education has increased by 26%. Now, Stephen keeps trotting out an OECD figure that he knows is flawed, he knows is misrepresenting the situation. There has not been a decline, there's been an increase.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, the OECD Education at a Glance Report 2006 said that Australia's investment in tertiary education publicly had gone backwards by 7% whereas OECD average was an increase of 48%. Comparison with OECD countries, our investment in tertiary education, we're 18th.

JULIE BISHOP: I must take issue with the suggestion that our funding has decreased. Stephen knows that figure is dodgy and he keeps trotting it out. Every time he says it doesn't make it true. We haven't decreased funding by 7%. The figure he refers to leaves out taxpayer subsidies for HECS, it leaves out the massive injection of funding from 2004 - because the figures back in 2003 he is using, 2004, we, through Backing Australia's Future, have ensured that universities are $11 billion better off over the next decade. This year they are receiving $8.2 billion from the Federal Government. Our universities are in better financial shape than they've ever been in...

Now... who's right and who's wrong?

Aussie news bites

2007-04-22T21:26:00.000+10:00

Time for some higher education news from down under.

The biggest event the past week was definitely the launch of Melbourne University - New Style. The so-called Melbourne Model is based on six broad undergraduate programs followed by a professional graduate degree, research higher degree or entry directly into employment. In simple terms, what happened is that the old English model was exchanged for the American one. Of course this was accompanied by protests since according to some the university has decided on this move because of a lack of funding and others claim that this is just a measure that makes higher ed more elitist.

I think Glyn Davis, Melbourne's Vice-Chancellor, made an interesting move by adopting the new model. Considering Melbourne's good reputation, national and international, it's also a risky one. There's already quite some speculation on whether other universities will follow the Melbourne Model in the future. The future will tell, but at least Julie Bishop, the federal Minister for Education has seen her wish come true: finally there's some more diversity in the Australian higher education landscape.

Also this week, a study came out conducted by Gary Marks for the Australian Council for Educational Research. The study, released today, investigated attrition rates from university courses, background factors that may influence attrition and the labour market consequences of non-completion. Data were collected from a group of young Australians who commenced university study between 1998 and 2001. An analysis of the characteristics of students who fail to complete university courses has found that whether a student attended a government or independent school and their socioeconomic background made little difference to the odds of completing their course. The full report of the study can be downloaded here (pdf).

And then there was another study. Professor John Sweller of the University of New South Wales claims to have proved that powerpoint presentations have little power and even less point. According to his report, the brain cannot cope with having too much information thrown at it at once. Having someone speak and point to a screen full of facts and figures at the same time causes it to switch off. Sweller: "The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster. It should be ditched.

Clearly there's a difference between giving a ppt presentation and giving a good ppt presentation. I guess everyone by now knows that there should not be too much text on a slide and that you shouldn't read the slide during a presentation. I know not everyone obeys these rules, but ditching powerpoint seems to me a premature conclusion. I wonder whether the guys over in Redmond are getting nervous already...

Good Global Governance?

2007-04-20T12:14:00.000+10:00

After all the controversy about World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, the Economist has now opened the attack on Secretary General Angel Gurr�a of that other global governance institution, the OECD. Since accountability and good governance are some of the main priorities in the OECD, it's a good thing that publications like the Economists keep a close watch on the internal governance of such international organisations.

Iain Carson, the author of the article, points to a number of issues that leaves some - to say the least -suggestion of nepotism, corruption and excessive compensation. Clearly this is not exactly the desired PR for an organisation like the OECD; it doesn't come as a surprise therefore that Gurr�a was very swift in issuing a reaction to the article.

The issues raised mainly related to the excessive expenses for the refurbishment of his apartment, the lack of transparency in an appointment of a top level executive and the appointment of his daughter and a political friend (and spouse). Then there were some issues with soccer tickets and the accusation of favouring the Mexican government. All in all not a pretty picture.

I have complained about the Economist's tendency to 'twist' the facts before. Here again, the Economist could have been a bit more careful and accurate in their reporting. They omit for instance that Gurr�a's daughter was employed for 2 weeks and received a French minimum salary (taxable!) and that he asked her to leave in order to avoid any controversy. On the other hand, he adds that he acted this way following advice that he received; I would guess a person in that position could figure that out himself!

The appointment of his friend was based on his qualifications and the employment of his friends spouse is related to the fact that the OECD has a policy to assist spouses to find a job. Dismissing accusations by passing responsibility to the OECD's regulations or practices is something that Gurr�a does rather frequently. The refurbishment of his house - totalling nearly a million Euros - and the salary, compensations and bonuses are all attributed to OECD regulations, Gurr�a responded. Such a way out seems a bit too easy to me. The issue on the case of favouring Mexico is clearly and easily refuted by Gurr�a. This should have been reported by Carson!

Summarising: the Economists that deliberately tries to blow up a story by omitting some and exaggerating other information. And a statement of the Secretary General that counters some of the accusations but clearly fails to counter all of them...

One major difference with the Wolfowitz case is that Gurria has the support of his staff

Top 15 Controversial Honorary Doctorates

2007-04-19T22:05:00.000+10:00

The tradition of awarding honorary degrees stems from Oxford University. These degrees were first awarded here in the 14th century and were given mostly to academic scholars. Nowadays the recipients range from academics to politicians to artists. Lately there has been quite some controversy about a few universities that had awarded Robert Mugabe an honorary degree. To my knowledge our most popular honorary degree recipients must be dr.dr.dr.dr. V�clav Havel and dr.dr.dr. Nelson Mandela. Mandela has at least 30 honorary degrees - next to a long list of other awards. V�clav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic, collected at least 46 honorary degrees. Every single one of them well deserved. In the following 15 cases that wasn't so sure...

15.

Let's start in Canada. On June 16, 2005 the University of Western Ontario conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws degree upon Morgentaler, a longtime abortion activist. This decision by UWO's senate honorary degrees committee generated opposition from Canadian pro-life organizations. Over 12,000 signatures were acquired asking the UWO to reverse its decision to honour Dr. Morgentaler.

14.

Yusuf Islam (formerly known as singer Cat Stevens) was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Gloucestershire. The year before that he was questioned about his alleged links with terrorists. He endorsed the fatwa on writer Salman Rushdie and refuses to shake the hand of a woman.

13.
My former employer, Twente University decided to award an honorary doctorate to Abdurrahman Wahid (better known as Gus Dur). This was just after he became the first (indirectly) democratically elected president of the Republic of Indonesia. If they had only known that a year later Gus Dur became involved in a corruption scandal (known as the Bulog-gate), a scandal in which Wahid's masseur and business partner allegedly stole $3.6 million from the state food agency, Bulog. Obviously questions arose within the university whether they should still award him the degree or not. I think they went on with it because Wahid would receive the doctorate for his lifetime work as leader of Indonesia's largest (moderate) Muslim group Nahdlatul Ulama and also because he was not personally involved in the scandal. Whether he ever received the doctorate, I don't know. I hope he did!! Things became rather quiet after a while....

12.

Another one from Canada. Controversy erupted when Ryerson University conferred an honorary degree on medical ethicist Margaret Somerville. A number of faculty from Ryerson and other universities and students vocally protested Somerville views that children�s rights are violated when they are adopted by same-sex couples.

11.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin Superior. The award recognized Schwarzenegger's contributions to health and fitness, speaking out against prejudice, and creating positive opportunities for inner-city children.

10.

Mike Tyson- Boxer and High School dropout received a Doctorate in Humane Letters in 1989 from Central Ohio State University. Another boxer, George Foreman received an honorary doctorate from the Houston Graduate School of Theology on Saturday for his charity work with children.

Bill Gates - the chairman of Microsoft will get an honorary degree from Harvard on June 7 this year. Maybe not really controversial, but funny considering that Gates once studied mathematics at Harvard but then dropped out after 2 years. But he did fine without the degree...

The University of Queensland in Australia awarded a doctorate to its longest serving State Prime Minister. Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen however was not exactly impeccable ...he turned out to be a corrupt populist.

Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori's honorary doctorate was received in 1992 and revoked in 2001! He received it from his Alma Mater "National Agrarian University" in Peru, where he studied, taught and served as rector. They stripped him of an honorary doctorate for 'ethical reasons'.

Recent controversy in the Australian National University. They awarded Lee Kuan Yew an honorary doctorate, and - to say it mildly - the faculty weren't all too happy about that. He is Singapore's founding father, Prime Minister from 1959-1990 and current 'Minister Mentor' under his son Lee Hsien Loong. Well....basically he is Singapore. He brought Singapore a lot of economic prosperity and was a little less concerned with individual liberties, press freedom and academic freedom. On top of all that he stated in the 1980s that Australians were destined to become the "poor white trash of Asia". The Australians didn't really appreciate that.

Number 6 is for my own Alma Mater, the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. As a University close to the German border they decided to award an honorary doctorate to Helmut Kohl, the former Chancellor of Germany. But - just as the other Dutch case at nr.13 - their Doctor too be became involved in a corruption scandal (Das System Kohl)in the Christian Democratic Party CDU. In the end he did receive his honorary doctorate in October 2000.

In 2002, the University of Wolverhampton awarded honorary degrees to glam rockers Slade, whose creative approach to spelling was displayed on 1970s hits such as Mama Weer All Crazee Now and Gudbuy t�Jane.

This one actually shouldn't be here, since they never got to awarding the honorary degree. The most famous rejection was of Margaret Thatcher, who was snubbed by Oxford academics while she was prime minister. She was the first Oxford graduate turned PM that did not receive the honorary degree...

Then there is of course Robert Mugabe or Dr Dictator. He was awarded honorary degrees by Edinburgh University (1984), the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1986) and Michigan State University (1990). The President of Zimbabwe, was showered with praise when he helped establish the independence of his country, formerly Rhodesia, in 1979 and end white rule when he won the first open elections as prime minister. But a lot can change in 30 years...

An the indisputable number 1. In 1996 Southampton College at Long Island University awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters to Muppet Kermit the Frog. Although some students objected to awarding a degree to a puppet, Kermit delivered an enjoyable commencement address and the small college received considerable press coverage.